Splinter Cell: Blacklist aims to take Conviction's promise to the next level and then some

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"I'm not going to go into the whole story," says
Splinter Cell: Blacklist creative director Maxime Béland during an interview with Joystiq at PAX 2012, "but
Conviction was kind of a rescue job for me." As the last game in the
Splinter Cell series (that also served as a more action-oriented reboot),
Conviction ended up
doing fairly well at retail. But Béland says that he and another producer were "brought in because it wasn't going well. We changed the direction and kind of shipped the game in two years. So
Conviction is very sweet and sour for me."
Soon after
Conviction's release, Béland says he and his team sat down to put together a spreadsheet, going through over 80 reviews of the game and marking out what features were most mentioned, and which were most positively or negatively received. The black-and-white graphics during gameplay weren't well liked, so this past E3 when
Béland announced Blacklist, one of the first things he said was that black-and-white was out.
Players felt the single-player part of
Conviction "was too short, and the scope of the game wasn't big enough," so growing the world of Sam Fisher has become a priority for
Blacklist. And the least-liked feature of
Blacklist? Fans really missed the spy vs. mercs competitive gameplay mode. That's why for
Blacklist, it's implemented right back in there. "Easiest decision of my life," says Béland.
Splinter Cell: Blacklist (E3 2012)
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source:Joystiq