Splinter Cell Blacklist - Xbox 360

Series Favorite Spies Vs. Mercs Mode Returns In New Trailer

2013-05-03T14:40:00Z

Splinter Cell: Conviction was a great game, but Ubisoft forgot something on the multiplayer side of things. Fortunately, the popular Spies vs. Mercs mode is returning in Splinter Cell: Blacklist, and it's bigger than ever.

The mode divides players into teams of spies or mercenaries. Spies have to infiltrate an installation and steal data from nodes, while the mercenaries do their best to prevent that from happening. Team sizes have crept up over the years, moving from old-school two against two matches to Double Agent's three on three competitions. Blacklist increases the pool one more tick, so now up to eight players can join in the fight over the mysterious data.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

The clip above shows off the two factions and what they each offer. Spies have more gadgets, and they're able to fully take advantage of the environments by climbing up pipes or into spaces that mercs can't. On the other hand, the mercs are more heavily armed and can take more damage. The choice ultimately comes down to how you like to play.

Look for Splinter Cell: Blacklist on the Xbox 360, PS3, PC, and Wii U on August 20.

Sam Fisher Gets Physical In Stalk, Strike, Silence Trailer

2013-04-15T22:05:00Z

Sam Fisher has always been one of the baddest men in gaming, and Ubisoft is eager to remind us in the latest trailer for the upcoming Splinter Cell Blacklist. Watch the super spy gear up before putting some terrorists out of our misery.

The Stalk, Strike, Silence trailer showcases some of Sam's new toys, including what appears to be an EMP crossbow. That's a big step up from shooting out light bulbs one at a time. Additionally, new voice actor Eric Johnson flexes his vocal cords a bit and does his best to make us forget all about Michael Ironside.

Splinter Cell Blacklist is due out on August 20 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, and PC.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Splinter Cell Blacklist Preview – Sam Fisher Takes Command In The War On Terror

2013-01-30T21:52:00Z

Ever since an impressive debut last E3, details on Splinter Cell Blacklist have been strictly classified. A new year means new intel, as we witnessed live gameplay of two new levels and learned more about the universal upgrade system.

For the uninitiated, Sam is pulled back into service personally by U.S. President Patricia Caldwell. She’s shuttered Third Echelon due to the corruption that came to light in the events of Splinter Cell: Conviction and devoted funding to a new off-the-books team with Sam at the helm (named Fourth Echelon, naturally). His close circle includes series mainstay Anna “Grim” Grimsdottir, hacker Charlie Cole, and CIA operative Isaac Briggs. Rather than holing up in a building, the team crisscrosses the globe in a mobile base/plane named the Paladin. The reason for all this secrecy and spending? An international terrorist alliance named the Engineers has announced a series of attacks on the United States dubbed the Blacklist. Unless the U.S. withdraws military forces out of a long list of countries, the Engineers will continue to execute terrorist strikes throughout the world.

Every time players fire up the game, they go directly to the Paladin, where Sam can walk around, chat with his team, and interact with the Strategic Mission Interface (SMI) supercomputer. People on the aircraft can offer insight, upgrades, and new missions. The SMI is an interactive screen on top of a large table that the whole team can crowd around. Sam can look at a map of the world to see all of the single player, co-op, and competitive multiplayer missions in one place. Filters can assist if you’re looking for a specific type of mission, but it seems pretty clear overall.

The first mission we saw takes place after the Blacklist attacks are set in motion. Sam needs to get to a CIA safehouse in Benghazi, Libya to find and extract a contact. The twist? It’s Andriy Kobin, a sleazy black-market dealer whom Sam has plenty of reason to hate from the events of Conviction. He tells Briggs to bring his sniper gear while Grim strongly reminds everyone that this is an extraction, not an assassination.

We skip the first part of the mission where Sam is disguised as a civilian and sneaks to the safehouse. Once there, it’s clear that the terrorist forces beat Fisher to Kobin. When Sam establishes contact with the Paladin to figure out a new plan of attack, the whole room fills with projected data and imagery, a subtle, yet more evolved take on the projected mission objectives of Conviction. They exchange intel and Sam heads toward Kobin’s suspected location.

As he ziplines over and prowls through the dangerous streets crawling with enemy forces, we get to see the scoring system in action. Whenever Sam slides past troops unseen or takes them down non-lethally and hides the bodies, he gets experience points in the Ghost category. These points pay more into the progression system than aggressive run-and-gun Assault maneuvers. Somewhere between complete stealth and crazy commando is Panther. Here you kill people without raising a ruckus with neck snaps or the stylish mark-and-execute mechanic first seen in Conviction. With every action, points pop up at the bottom of the screen with one of these three icons next to it. At the end of a mission, you can see which categories you focused on the most, though they all pour into one big currency pot. If you’re not satisfied with your performance you can always replay missions for a better score and tweak the difficulty.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Sam reaches what looks to be a former police station. Kobin is tied to a chair, -receiving electric shocks from a group of three terrorists for his lack of cooperation. Sam can see it all through the cracked one-way glass -commonly used in interrogation rooms. He marks all three, causing red arrows to appear above their heads, and then executes his plan. Sam smashes the window, grabs a guy and pulls him through, then pops up and shoots the other two before they realize what’s going on. Kobin, facing away from his rescuer, wonders aloud, “So what are you? CIA? Special forces?” His facial expression drops from smarmy to terrified once he sees Sam’s face. Trying to hop away in his chair, Kobin tips over and smashes to the floor. Sam tells him to relax, cuts him free, and gets him to his feet. Players then must escort him unharmed to an escape point and dig into cover to dismantle the enemy forces. Once the coast is clear they zipline out of the building and head back to the Paladin.

Kobin’s immediately shuffled into one of the onboard holding cells. Sam can venture back there and get intel on a new possible mission from him. Kobin says he has information on an attack on a Vienna embassy. Sam can accept the mission immediately or put it off until later. It’ll then show up in the SMI as a co-op mission. Ubisoft says most of the co-op missions can also be tackled solo, so you don’t have to wait for a buddy to come online to experience the story and score some cash for upgrades.

Once you’ve loaded up on money, you can buy new weapons, suits, gadgets, and upgrades for your plane. Stealth-focused players can invest in quieter equipment and sneaky gadgets, while assaulters can buy body armor and bigger guns. Players can save multiple loadouts for use in different mission types. All cash, gear, and loadouts are universal through single player, co-op, and competitive multiplayer. Ubisoft estimates players can unlock 30 to 40 percent of the upgrades upon a first playthrough of the single player and co-op, but it’s also possible for multiplayer fans to get everything through hours of competitive matches and start the campaign fully upgraded.

The next mission takes place several hours later in the campaign in a London chemical lab. Sam creeps past several guards on rainy nighttime rooftops. He comes upon an open elevator shaft and uses a rope to slide down to the bottom. The new area is crawling with enemies, including a tech soldier who can jam your radar and enemy-detecting goggles. He sends out small drones that can zip along the floor and ceiling and explode if they sense a threat. Fortunately, Sam’s always a step ahead in the technology department. He sends out his own remote hovering drone to track down the tech. Using the drone’s first-person camera view, Sam locates the offending enemy and takes him out with one clean shot.

With his full abilities restored, Sam makes his way to an office full of documents. They indicate an important shipment scheduled to leave the lab soon. Further on, he finds several guys in hazmat suits loading cargo. He must get to the shipment completely undetected to plant a tracker (one of the few sections in the game that requires stealth). Sam slips inside the shipping container and opens a high tech case. Over the radio, Grim explains that it’s some kind of nerve gas derivative. Sam places the tracker inside, unconcerned with the dangerous substance. He closes everything back up as an enemy approaches.

And so the promising demo ends. Blacklist has made a lot of progress since E3, but Ubisoft Toronto has pushed the release back from the initial spring release window to late August to clear it from a surprisingly competitive March and allow for more polish. Hopefully, it’ll be worth the wait.

Sam Fisher Doesn't Mess Around In New Splinter Cell: Blacklist Trailer

2013-01-17T19:20:00Z

The newest Splinter Cell: Blacklist trailer shows Sam Fisher doing what he does best: ridding the world of bad guys.

Dubbed the Inauguration trailer, the new video starts with a montage of presidents being sworn into office before we get to the good stuff. After pledging to stop not just one but all of the Blacklist attacks being carried out on the U.S., Fisher engages in all sorts of rappelling, neck snapping, and explosion dodging. I'm still not sure what the footage of our former presidents has to do with anything, but it looks like Blacklist ups the series' action to new heights.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Splinter Cell: Blacklist will release on August 20 on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. To see Fisher's sneakier side, check out this developer diary.

Let's Play The Quiet Game In The Latest Splinter Cell Developer Diary

2012-12-01T21:13:24Z

The latest developer diary for the upcoming Splinter Cell: Blacklist teaches us how to be quiet.

The video features animation director Kristjan Zadziuk as he shows off some of the ways Sam Fisher can take out enemies and quickly hide their bodies. And ways he can just take them out without worrying about sound or bodies when necessary.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist is set for release next year.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

The Sneakier Side Of Sam Fisher

2012-09-01T13:00:00Z

During a PAX Prime 2012 presentation Ubisoft showed off the same section of the E3 demo but with Sam’s sneakier touch, including an encounter with a vicious canine and an ingenious breaching tactic.

...(read more)

Watch 10 Minutes Of Splinter Cell: Blacklist

2012-08-17T16:46:00Z

Splinter Cell: Blacklist creative director Maxime Beland walks Sam Fisher through a mission taking place on the Iraq/Iran border. Sam is hunting for information pertaining to the next Blacklist attack. His mission starts quietly, but quickly escalates into all out war.

For more information on Blacklist, check out Matt Miller's excellent What Makes Blacklist Different Than Previous Games in the Series.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

What Makes Blacklist Different From Previous Games In The Series?

2012-06-08T05:12:28Z

Ubisoft's latest Tom Clancy project looked mighty fine at E3 this year. We investigate the new game to figure out what sets Blacklist apart from its predecessors.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist represents a new direction for the Splinter Cell franchise, both in terms of story tone and gameplay style. While many of the foundational elements of stealth gameplay remain important to the series, Ubisoft Toronto is exploring a number of features and story elements that will make Blacklist stand apart from previous entries in the series.

The Blacklist

The title of the game offers the first hint of what escalates Splinter Cell's plot into new levels of global significance. The game's developers were inspired by looking at the issue that the United States has troops of some sort in two-thirds of the nations in the world. What does that mean to those other nations, especially to those that wish that US would stay out of their affairs?

The Blacklist represents a new pact by a number of rogue nations who have banded together to demand that US soldiers leave their countries. To make it happen, these renegade states have devised a plan to attack America where it hurts the most - targeting major sites in the US for terrorist attack, each one representative of a particular American value. The list of their targets is the Blacklist.

Fourth Echelon

In response to this unprecedented threat, the President reaches out to Sam Fisher. Sam's had enough of the spy game after the events of Conviction, but the President manages to convince him to return to the fight. His condition on returning is that he needs to be able to do things his way, and lead the organization that will deal with the Blacklist threat.

Third Echelon is dead. A new mobile task force is formed with Sam at its head; Fourth Echelon is based out of a high-tech plane, from which Sam can deploy himself and his forces around the world. The SMI (Strategic Mission Interface) is onboard; it's a super cloud computer connected to all the major US intelligence organizations.

From the SMI, Sam has missions and new content popping up all over the world, and this interface will serve as the hub for everything you do in the game. Single player, cooperative, and competitive missions are all available from this station, and each mission will move the story forward and contribute reward money that Sam can use to improve Fourth Echelon's capabilities.

Upgrades

Blacklist has a new approach to upgrades. No matter what mode you play, and whether you're playing alone or with friends, you're acquiring money that can be used to improve your versatility in the field. Money can be spent to get new weapons, new equipment, upgrade existing tools, improve Sam's field suit, and more. The idea is to let players customize their loadout and strengths to their own playstyle, no matter what mode you choose to play.

Mobility

Sam Fisher has been offered the fifth freedom to do whatever it takes to succeed in his mission, and he's taking advantage of the leeway. The demo we saw included Sam Fisher taking out a healthy share of bad guys in brutally efficient fashion. A big part of his new lethality comes from the ability to kill on the move. Like in Conviction, Sam can mark targets from cover before heading in for the attack. Unlike in Conviction, Sam can now take out marked targets while on the move. The resulting action sequences are thrilling, as Sam enters a room and pops one target after another as he moves forward, often eventually coming close to a final target who he engages in melee. This new Sam Fisher moves faster, and is deadlier than before.

Motion Capture and Acting

Ubisoft has invested in a deeper storytelling experience for Blacklist, and that means plenty of strong voicework and extensive motion captured animation. As players, it's easy to tell the difference. Cinematic scenes are tense and facial features are detailed and emotive. In particular, the interactions between the new actors behind Sam and Grim carry a lot of weight.

Fourth Echelon Moments

Not unlike the ability to call in your Brotherhood in Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell: Blacklist introduces a new mechanic that lets players call down aid from Sam's compatriots in Fourth Echelon. In the sequence we witnessed, Sam comes under heavy assault from several terrorists, including a pickup truck with a heavy machine gun mounted in the back. While Sam could choose to confront the situation on the own, in our demo he called down a "Fourth Echelon Moment" that resulted in a airstrike that totally destroyed the truck and the nearby fighters. These moments won't always be bombastic in nature. At other times, Sam will be able to call on Fourth Echelon to aid him in remaining stealthy, like one instance in which he can call for all the lights in a building to be shut down.

Beyond specific features, Splinter Cell: Blacklist simply comes across as a more ambitious game than its predecessors. Offering increased choices to players, the stealth options that dominated early games in the series have returned in full force. Simultaneously, several sequences we saw proved that the more action-focused elements present in Conviction have expanded as well. The game showed great at E3, and gave us hope that the Splinter Cell franchise has many more years ahead of it.