Agent Blaustein was sent to investigate shortly after, resulting in his disappearance a week later. Madison had been working undercover in Georgian President Kombayn Nikoladze's political cabinet, but suddenly went missing. T'bilisi Old Town, T'bilisi, Georgia: For his first assignment as a Splinter Cell (the second assignment according to Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Checkmate, which is a prequel), Sam was dispatched to Tbilisi in Georgia to investigate the disappearance of two CIA agents, Robert Blaustein and Alice Madison. Sam has been chosen to spearhead the newly formed Third Echelon, a secret black-ops branch of the NSA, as a Splinter Cell. You play as Sam Fisher, an agent working for the NSA.
You are a Splinter Cell." - in-game manual description Remember: Although killing may compromise secrecy, the choice between leaving a witness or a corpse is no choice at all. You must leave no trace on the physical or political map. Fearing for the lives of American agents compromised at the hands of a suspected terrorist effort, Third Echelon has activated Splinter Cell operative Sam Fisher to locate the missing agents and evaluate the situation. A second operative, Agent Blaustein, was inserted into the Georgian capital T'bilisi to locate Agent Madison, only to drop from contact seven days later.
March 10, 2004: The CIA contacted NSA officials regarding the loss of contact with Agent Alison Madison, a CIA operative monitoring widespread communication shortages plaguing the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Like a sliver of glass, a Splinter Cell is small, sharp, and nearly invisible. government, Third Echelon deploys units known as Splinter Cells: elite intelligence-gathering forces consisting of a lone field operative supported by a remote team. When intelligence deemed critical to national security cannot be obtained by traditional means, Third Echelon is granted clearance to conduct physical operations.ĭenied to exist by the U.S. The top-secret initiative, dubbed Third Echelon, marks a return to classical methods of espionage, enhanced with leading-edge surveillance and combat technology for the aggressive collection of stored data in hostile territories. In response to the growing use of sophisticated digital encryption to conceal potential threats to the national security of the United States, the NSA (National Security Agency) has ushered forth a new dawn of intelligence-gathering techniques. Ubisoft also brought in veteran actor Michael Ironside to provide the voice for Sam Fisher. While the game ran on Unreal Engine 2 engine, Ubisoft utilized the engine for dynamic lighting effects as well as well as creating realistic physics (such as the soft physics). Ubisoft Montreal focused on making a more realistic approach to the stealth genre, and in doing so had to do research on developing technology, such as the suit that Sam wears, the type of tech for surveillance and the gadgets, and so on. Though Tom Clancy later approved of it as Ubisoft made use of it as Sam Fisher's signature style and explained that having two separate devices, which the player would need to interchange, would be highly detrimental to gameplay. This is due to the issues such a device would have with size and cost in real life. Tom Clancy at first did not approve of the tri-focal goggles, which were said to contain both night vision and thermal vision, as it was unrealistic to have such a device. Tom Clancy endorsed it while also being a support writer for scenarios. Ubisoft Montreal was tasked into creating a revolutionary stealth game that took elements from Thief and Metal Gear Solid. Eventually, The Drift was dropped, while elements retained in what would be known as " Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell", a game based on Ubisoft's directive to Ubisoft Montreal to make a " Metal Gear Solid 2 killer". The Drift was a prototype of things to come, but was described as having 'no soul', despite incorporating ideas and concepts that were ahead of its time. The player could use their multi-purpose gun to grapple walls, fire cameras and even change vision models. Ubisoft initially started development on a title called "The Drift", where the game was originally a third-person shooter in a futuristic-retro setting where Earth had been destroyed and major cities of remnant humans built cities on the debris of the earth. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell is the first video game in the Splinter Cell franchise, and was also the second Tom Clancy's brand video game franchise that was not originally based on a Tom Clancy book (with the first being Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, which was released in 2001 for the PC). 6.9 Xbox 360 (Backwards Compatibility) (2018).