Splinter Cell: Conviction To Revitalize the Franchise

In an interview with IndustryGamers, Max Beland, the Splinter Cell: Conviction Creative Director, explained the reasoning behind why the team decided to revitalize the franchise and touched specifically on why the new stealth mechanic will be “something you want to use”.

For anyone that has played a game from the Splinter Cell series (and isn’t a massive fan), you will know how frustrating it can be when you get detected and have to restart the mission from the last checkpoint. Well, it seems Ubisoft now agree, Beland commented during the GDC: “we decided that we’re going to make you the ultimate predator. Instead of forcing the stealth on the player, where you’re seen and the alarm rings and you need to re-try, we’re going to do the opposite.”

“We had a clear player fantasy that we wanted to continue to deliver, but it was clear that we weren’t delivering it properly or well enough since people were not sticking to it,” said Beland.

“They were not finishing the games we were making and the sales were stagnating.”

“If you look at the sales of Splinter Cell 1 versus Splinter Cell 4, they go a little bit down. So, our fantasy was good but we needed to approach it differently.”

“We’re going to make stealth something you want to use. We want you to be a predator, not a grandmother. Being a grandmother before kind of forced you to be stealth. You need to hide in the shadows because if you’re seen, they shoot you and you’re dead.”

“But what if we make the shadows something that’s interesting and makes you powerful and you use as a tactical tool against your enemies. So that’s how we’re able to approach our franchise differently while staying true to the values.”

Splinter Cell: Conviction will be out on Tuesday 13th April for the Xbox 360.