After Splinter Cell Conviction, it was hard to imagine Sam Fisher being any more brutal than he was on his mission to avenge his daughter. The guy does his best Mel Gibson impersonation, torturing an entire nation while asking “Give me back my family!” Well, the new trailer for Blacklist has proven me wrong. The gameplay demo at E3 confirmed that Fisher is just as deadly as ever, as he takes out entire platoons of soldiers and introduces more than a few to the end of his knife. While the gameplay looks improved even from Conviction’s stellar, more faced paced action, I have a few concerns I’d like to air out:

• The shift of story from “personal” to “one man army fighting for his country” is a little bit disappointing. Conviction was the first Splinter Cell story that anyone on the planet cared about, so a “return to form” to me sounds like “more boring stuff.”
• Michael Ironside, Fisher’s voice now for over a decade, has been replaced so that an actor who can perform the motion capture could be enlisted. I’m going to go ahead and put that in the “what a terrible excuse to ruin some of gaming’s best voice acting” for now.
• The game features Kinect functionality. Which would be great if anyone cared about Kinect at all or were excited about these features. Certain voice commands distract guards or call down airstrikes for…whatever, I don’t even care enough to finish that sentence.

Despite my concerns, it’s nice to see that the action and innovation in Conviction has not been forgotten, even while the component of traditional stealth appears to make a return. I’ll put my faith in Ubisoft to deliver on one of their most cherished, successful franchises. For now, check out the trailer and come to your own conclusions on Splinter Cell’s next evolution.

Splinter Cell Blacklist E3 Trailer: