Redding says that these maps provide about an extra five to six hours of content with each map taking about an hour and a half to two hours and individual sections taking about 20 to 30 minutes. "We're committed to having a fresh location that's distinct and provides a bit of backstory and context to what Sam's dealing with, but it's also unique and specific to co-op." There are four maps in this co-op prologue set in the former Soviet Union, and the entire mode has its own set of unique characters (including its two playable agents) not found in other portions of the game. "Rather than saying we're going to take a few maps from single-player, a couple of Washington DC locations, and let two players play through them on an alternate path, we said 'no,'" says Redding. The first is the two-player co-op prologue to the game's single-player experience that takes place a few months before Sam Fisher's hunt begins. All of the tools for doing that work really well when you can take two players, put them together, and say, 'OK, you guys are going to multiply out the effectiveness of all these mechanics by working together to dominate and take out the AI.' That meant co-op was going to be our focus." There are two major aspects to the co-op experience in Splinter Cell: Conviction. We wanted to make sure we were retaining that same fantasy and keeping it consistent into the multiplayer experience. "You can say 'no more rules of engagement,' unleash violence on your enemies, slip back into the shadows and disappear. What happens when a special agent can do whatever is necessary to get the job done? "You can take that guy off the leash," he says. But Conviction brings something a little different to the table by exploring what happens when you remove the rules of engagement. Redding says that a big part of that experience is the fantasy of being one of the world's best special agents, moving in and out of the shadows to complete missions with utmost efficiency. We're extending the experience in a few different directions."īy clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot's There's actual integration with what players are doing in the game and going on in the Splinter Cell universe. "One thing that was really important for us was the idea of having a storyline for multiplayer. We really wanted to avoid a situation where multiplayer was just an arcade mode that lived in a little bubble off to the side and people jumped into it when they were done with Sam Fisher," he says. "We started working on multiplayer around the same time we did the major course correction on Splinter Cell: Conviction. This approach and many of those features carry over to Conviction's multiplayer modes, which Ubisoft Montreal's game director for multiplayer, Patrick Redding, says is an extension of the single-player experience and not just something that has been tacked on.
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We've already seen some pieces of the single-player campaign in Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction-a reboot of sorts for the Splinter Cell franchise that reworks some of the old elements from the series and introduces new ones, such as the mark-and-execute feature as well as new storytelling methods.