Literally 5 minutes after the intro mission, turn off the HUD/mission markers and play on very hard. This is the best way to play any stealth game imo, especially a sandbox one. Also did anyone play a non-blink game their first time? Blink really kills the tension of stealth imo.

Nah, I don't see a point in playing without blink, since it is fun, the game is build for it and I can do crouching behind objects in many other games.

Edit: I played for the first time with objective markers. I always start playing with default settings.

Now I leave only health, mana and contextual actions' icons.

Turning off almost every HUD element was the first thing I did. I hate cluttered screen, floating arrows etc. I left only health and mana bars (fading).

The entire game is built around Blink, playing without it would be strange.

I left a fair bit of the GUI on to begin with, except the objective markers, but now I play with everything but the heath/mana bars displayed. I haven't tried a non-blink playthrough since the entire game is built around it.

My first ever playthrough was with objective markers on; I didn't trust myself to find the way without them. But now I play without. The rest of the HUD is on.

You can't really not use blink ever. And like people already said, the game was built around that power, that's what makes it fun.

I think you can. Aside from the tutorial bit in the void, I don't think it's impossible. If you get the agility upgrade to jump higher you can still make your way on top of buildings without blink.

Stealth will be a lot slower of course, more Thief-like, since you can't simply lean around a corner and then blink behind a guard who was facing in your direction. You have to wait for him to turn around or distract him with a thrown object.

I know you definitely have to blink your way up when entering Dunwall Tower. Other than that, I guess it's possible almost all the time, but you'd have to go through the front door nearly everywhere - no blinking to balconies etc.

Well no. I'm not exactly particular about cluttered screens. Anyway i did turn off a few of the useless UIs. Good that they allowed such customization. And very hard, lol no. No idea how hard the game was going to be, didnt want to reload time and over again (if any). And no i didnt not use blink on my first game. This was the first game i played which had such a skill, why wouldnt i use it?

Agreed. The idea behind Blink was to avoid cumbersome first-person platforming. Jumping around rooftops in the first-person, where you can't see your body position, is often awkward in games. Blink removes that.

I am on my 1.5 playthrough (as I stopped my first one at cca 1/2 of the game and now I am hurrying to the point where I stopped to proceed and then get to the already bought DLCs). UI has been almost totaly disabled (health and mana contextual, not quest updates etc.), but on several occasions I had to temporarily enable the quest markers, as I actually failed to find some NPCs (in Hound Pits, mostly) and running around for more than 10 minutes without ANY clue was not worth it. Blink I use all the time, but the only other skills upgraded and used were/are Agility and Endurance. From weapons, just sleep darts, nothing else, and on Very Hard difficulty. Lots of fun I have with this setup:-) I am not looking for all the coins, all the runes, Ghost stat etc., as I simply do not have time for this, but I keep reading documents, taking side quests, going on Low Chaos and without killing anyone.

I've just started my first playthrough. I must admit, I did turn off the quest markers during the escape mission at the beginning. I found it quite refreshing to navigate your way around, rather than have a convenient marker telling you exactly where to go as in other Bethesda games. Dunwall is quite a detailed world, so I think there is enough signposting and clues to find your way around without the need for a quest marker.

I didn't to that my first few times but I am now. Using only the first level of Blink, and nothing else..