As part of the franchise's 20th-anniversary celebrations (Feel old? Yup, me too), Splinter Cell developers past and present met up at Ubisoft Toronto to discuss the series' origins, future, and legacy, including some of the team currently working on the new Splinter Cell remake, which was announced this time last year.
The anniversary event includes an interview with creative director Chris Auty, technical director Christian Carriere, senior game designer Andy Schmoll, and associate level design director Zavian Porter, who all sat down to discuss the early Splinter Cell games’ "lighting, visuals, player agency, and everything else that made them so revolutionary".
Interestingly, it also revealed that you can beat the new Splinter Cell without a single kill thanks to new mechanics that will allow players to "de-escalate" situations.
"We want to scale that back a bit in the remake, and we want to give the player a few more opportunities to deescalate some of those situations," explained senior game designer Andy Schmoll.
"Obviously, stealth is an extremely important pillar for us, and we aim to incorporate modern design philosophies, improving the minute-to-minute stealth gameplay that was so special in the original."
"So Sam, being the ultimate covert field agent, he has an enormous array of tools and abilities, gadgets, and movements at his disposal," adds creative director, Chris Auty. "And with all of those, they aim to create these moments of tension. You know there's an enemy nearby. You know that there's a threat coming around the corner.
"And he has these tools in his toolbox that he can use to react to that stuff at a split second. If there's an enemy coming around the corner that you didn't spot in time, he can do these split jumps, get up high, and kind of avoid contact. He can plan ahead by looking under doorways and using these tools to understand where the threats and that sort of thing are.
"We want to create these moments of tension that the player will need to use those tools and gadgets to react, too."
That's not all, either. As part of the celebrations, Ubisoft is giving away the original Splinter Cell game for free from now until the end of the month, November 30.
As for the Splinter Cell remake? Ubisoft revealed the first look at "early concept art" yesterday. As Ali summarized at the time, much of the artwork shows lead character Sam Fisher lurking stealthily in the shadows.
"The Splinter Cell remake, announced last year, will be a celebration of the 20-year-old game, taking inspiration from the original games, modernizing their themes, and rebuilding them for a modern audience," Ubisoft explained.
