Sat, Apr 10, 2010 | 21:00 BST
Conviction started out much different than final product, says producer
Splinter Cell: Conviction’s creative director Maxime Beland has revealed that the original idea of the game was lot different than it turned out.
Speaking with GamePro, Beland said that originally, the team wanted to make an “anti” Splinter Cell game.
“When I got here there was a creative director on the team already,” Beland explained. “The original idea for Conviction was to make the anti-Splinter Cell game. It was super interesting, and there was a lot of Bourne Identity influence to it, but the project was taking an awful lot of risks. Taking a known franchise that has some set core values and some set expectations, and saying that you’re going to do a complete one-eighty on it is very, very risky.
“If you’re doing a Splinter Cell game, you have to build on the core values. Stealth wasn’t there, it was now stealth in the crowd where Sam would try to blend in with lots of non-player characters that were walking through the environment. It was kind of like the stuff in Assassin’s Creed.
“The cool gadgets weren’t there either. It was all improvised gadgets and using things you found in the environment as weapons and tools. Even the goggles were gone. The whole theme of light and shadow wasn’t there, either. How do you make a Splinter Cell game without light and shadow?”
Beland then went on to explain how the crowd works in the game, when compared to Assassin’s Creed II.
“When it comes to the crowd stuff, the beauty of Assassin’s Creed is that you’re in the Animus,” Beland said. “When you fuck up, it resets.
“It’s okay to have moments where the crowd runs away because you’re in the Animus, and you can explain why it gets reset. The suspension of disbelief is not broken in Assassin’s Creed because you know you’re in a simulator. Game design-wise you can justify one hell of a lot with it.
“When you’re making a Splinter Cell game though, one of your core values is realism. If you’re in a park and you blow up a propane tank on a hotdog stand and the crowd runs away, you just can’t expect that everyone will come back a minute later. In real life, you know what would happen in a situation like that. People might die, others would run away, and the cops would come and close down the area. The world wouldn’t be able to reset for gameplay reasons.”
There’s loads more through the link up top too, and it’s a rather good read, so give yourself some time with it.
Splinter Cell: Conviction is out next week on Xbox 360, and PC in June and was influenced by Max Payne and Uncharted, for starters.
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Posted in: Action, Hot, PC, Ubisoft, Xbox 360
Tags: Maxine Beland, splinter cell conviction
11 comments
#1
Hunam
10/04/10, 11:34 pm
Two points really.
1. So basically this producer comes along and takes a risky game and reigns in back into a more by the numbers Splinter Cell? That hardly seems like the best creative move in the world, regardless of how great the game looks (and tbh, it does)
2. Hitman. What he describes is something that happens in hitman. You can fuck a level up by firing a gun and everyone runs and hides and shit just goes to hell, but even then, you can complete your missions just by fighting your way through. Resetting? Basically you start the mission again or from a checkpoint. He’s saying that might break the immersion, but so does dying. Seems like he wanted a safer game that can’t be broken than a game that can give much more different outcomes.
#2
Bulk Slash
11/04/10, 2:05 am
A pity, it was the Bourne Identity inspired game that I was interested in. The demo for Conviction was OK, but this explains why it didn’t feel like the clever reinvention we were promised.
It’s interesting he highlights realism as one of the core aspects of the Splinter Cell games, as I’ve always thought that was one of the biggest things holding the franchise back…
#3
ybfelix
11/04/10, 3:26 am
I always thought Animus gave the developers too much leeway, it was such a huge carte blanche it’s not even funny.
Anyone feels Animus 2.0 became too “game-y”
#4
triggerhappy686
11/04/10, 3:53 am
The Animus is a pretty gay idea altogether i think, in my opinion it would have been much cooler if it was like that piece of head gear Dr Walter Bishop from Fringe has in the lab. Anyway back on topic… remember the whole blend in to the crowd mechanic they were going to have when it was first unveiled?? I liked that. Comments on IGN say single player campain is only 5 hours… tell me its not true… no wonder ubi is going to be doing “yearly installments” of this, sounds like we are only geting half a game at a time.
#5
funkstar
11/04/10, 4:17 am
im not sure about the length of the SP campaign (only played the first couple of missions), but theres also a four mission co-op campaign, played through the first of those missions tonight and it took about an hour, and then theres all the deniable ops stuff too…
one of the points of the IGN review was that if you’re buying it purely for SP you will be missing out, and thats definitely true.
There’s a hell of a lot of content in the game, its just spread between the different game modes rather than all being stuffed in single player i guess. The co-op campaign has a full story and stuff like SP in this case so if you include that you’re getting up to 9 or 10 hours, so i think the ‘half a game’ comment probably doesnt apply this time, although i can definitely see where you’re coming from…
#6
ybfelix
11/04/10, 9:39 am
Can you SP the co-op part? Just moved and without a boardband right now.
#7
Gekidami
11/04/10, 9:45 am
I think Ubi said that you actually can.
#8
Wakkum
11/04/10, 11:42 am
Right, it’s not like it’s a Splinter Cell-game now. It’s just another action-game with a bit of stealth. There is almost nothing that reminds of the old Splinter Cell. THe game is ok, but as a SC-game it disappoints on multiple levels.
I would have preferred the Bourne/Hitman-take on the SC-concept. It would be interesting, at the least.
#9
funkstar
11/04/10, 6:01 pm
ybfelix: no, but theres splitscreen
#10
JimFear666
12/04/10, 8:28 am
when i started to work on Conviction a Ubi-mtl. Sam was able to look through the wall, but a couple of month later the came to us saying that a lot of thing will be out of the game to make the game a little bit more credible and less sci-fi. I personnaly think at the begining of the production of the game , they had the idea to do something who was more influenced by MGS.
#11
Bulk Slash
12/04/10, 9:54 am
I’ve always thought if Ubisoft could merge the type of story and action of MGS with the controls, stealth and gadgets of Splinter Cell it could make a pretty awesome game.