Splinter Cell: Conviction - interview

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Splinter Cell is only based on light and shadows, say developers

GR: How much thought has been put into creating a sandbox style of level design?

DL: Our core game play and AI systems are so robust and deep, we can basically let the player off the leash and allow them to explore game play opportunities. They can create insane levels of chaos and panic, and the systems will follow without a sweat. Also, we've set out to create gameplay systems (Active Stealth, hand-to-hand, and firefight) that are exciting and interesting to play, so we don't need to try and restrain the player to one given style. The player can then analyze the situation himself, and decide on his own course of action. This is what we call improvisational gameplay, and we designed our systems in order to perfectly support this.

GR: Previous Splinter Cell games have required you to restart the level if you mess up by being found. In Conviction, it has been said that you'll usually be able to blend back in if you make a mistake. What is being done to balance the difficulty?

DL: In previous Splinter Cells, your goal as a player was not to disturb the AI so you could slip by unnoticed. In ConViction, you HAVE to disturb them if you want to avoid their attention, so more than likely, you'll be creating chaos and mayhem to reach your goals. You can then slip into a crowd and become anonymous long enough to lose the cops, or perhaps create a much greater distraction to break their focus on you. A cop is looking at you crossly because he recognized you from a Wanted poster he saw during his morning briefing? Try and blow up that hot dog vendor's propane tank and see if that's something more worth his attention for a while...

The hand-to-hand and firefight systems are not designed to be punitive, but rather a pleasant experience in their own right. So the player can expect to survive and even thrive when all else fails and they get into a fight. Players will probably come to rely on combat as one of their tools, instead of a sign that they failed and should now reload the map.