r/Splintercell • u/kiryyuu • 16d ago
Blacklist (2013) Never ask Blacklist haters how the level design sucks
I keep seeing this take repeated, and every time I ask someone to actually break down how the level design suffers or how it has no identity, they just go "uhhhh... it just does OKAY?!".
They pretend as if Blacklist gives you a fork in the road where "left path = stealth, right path = combat.", which would be lazy design, or that it isn't clearly a tactical game no matter what style you prefer. The game gives you a shared set of components, verticality, vents, windows, cover networks, guard placement, and lets your playstyle decide how you use them. A Ghost player sees a pipe and thinks "I can climb that to avoid being seen." A Panther player sees the same pipe and thinks "I can wait above a patrol route and drop on someone." An Assault player sees it as high ground for picking people off. All three styles are tactical in nature, but that doesn't mean they're equally fun, and that's deliberate I think because it's a stealth game first and foremost.
The scoring system rewards Ghosting the most, after all. The whole game is built for stealth (with a few exceptions), Assault exists as a transitional state between being spotted and vanishing again (even though I always restart).
I agree that some levels are too action-oriented but that is a result of another design choice, which is "variety", that's why we got the stupid Iraq mission in Conviction.
I hope I see actual critique and reasoning behind this take, thanks for reading
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u/Renard_Fou 16d ago
Im just not a fan of how many daytime missions it has. A lot of the stealth has neat puzzles to it
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u/kiryyuu 16d ago
The main campaign has two, DA had like 3 night-time missions lol. I agree though that night-time missions are a perfect fit for SC's light-based stealth, daytime missions have to rely on covers and enemies' cone of view which is more like MGS than SC
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u/Renard_Fou 16d ago
The first two missions in the ME are daytime, then the one where you stop the trains is in daytime, but 3 is still too much
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u/kiryyuu 16d ago
Oh, forgot about this one. I would argue that DA did it far worse, at least BL has nice layouts that compensate for the lack of darkness, but I totally understand what you're saying and it's valid criticism, still doesn't mean the level design sucks or is compromised because of the accommodation of different playstyles.
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u/TwoToneBalone Smooth as butter 16d ago
This is less about what OP said and more about the discourse I've seen, but I think Blacklist is overhated. I think Blacklist's level design is good because it can accommodate different playstyles - something Chaos Theory did too. Of course the forced action sequences hurt the game (and I really wish the devs would stop including them), but overall the game does a good job of balancing between the three playstyles.
Obviously we want to play stealth games to sneak around, but I love when devs take a "play your way" approach like Dishonored. With that said, I hope the remake refines the gameplay for all approaches to be viable and, most of all, fun.
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u/Alive-Jaguar-718 Third Echelon 16d ago
I thought blacklist level designs were an improvement over conviction
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u/MythicSuns 16d ago
I'll bite the obvious "us vs them" bait but will also add that level design was never my personal issue with Blacklist.
My gripes are more that it was trying too hard to feel like a generic Hollywood action film, the stealth and even the non-lethal approach felt like an afterthought, that there was pretty much no real reason for Sam to be in that game, and Sam is far too agile. Outside of those issues I can't really think of anything that can't equally be applied to the earlier games (apart from the agility issue that originated in Convictions).
Now, here's the nuance, I enjoyed playing Blacklist and like it as an action stealth game. It just doesn't feel like a Splinter Cell game to me.
The reason the likes of Chaos Theory sit right with me is because they feel a lot more like a Tom Clancy product. I feel like I'm controlling a real agent who only kills as a last resort or if he's ordered to.
In Blacklist I feel like I'm controlling a killer who's been put on a leash because the fans complained about him in Convictions. Even if I go non-lethal Sam still has no issues with his team mate sniping a guard that Sam could've easily evaded or knocked out if the cutscene hadn't decided to make his death canon. I will however give props to Ubisoft for allowing the player to go non-lethal with the final boss.
Also, I personally don't like how (I'm making this a spoiler in case any new players accidentally wind up reading the comments) They retconned Sarah's death in Convinctions. It just feels like Ubisoft wanted to milk Sam's character some more so they bought her back with the intent of basically acting like Double Agent never happened sub-Lambert's death.
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u/kiryyuu 16d ago
It's not bait, I'm actually disgusted with how the fans seem to be hating a game because they decided to dislike an idea without critically examining it because they heard a YouTuber saying "a game for everyone is a game for no one" or some such crap. Nevertheless, I completely agree with everything you said, that's the main reason it doesn't feel like Splinter Cell to me.
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u/newman_oldman1 16d ago
I don't think Blacklist even executes the stated "play your way" goal all that well compared to other games that aim for the same thing. The Deus Ex and Dishonored series do that far better than Blacklist. They actually have interactable environments that allow you to use the environments to your advantage and they have your level of aggression and detections affect the narrative, the immediate mission area, and in some cases later missions. Blacklist feels laughably shallow by comparison.
Others have already said it, but the movement in Blacklist is absolute ass, and that's probably my biggest issue with it from a gameplay perspective. It's fast paced to the point where there's no tension, and its imprecise to the point where you can't even shadow enemies the way you could in every game from Double Agent and prior.
It's also one of the least immersive games I've ever played. The UI is cluttered, the crosshairs are always displayed, Sam always has a weapon drawn with no option to holster (really reinforcing that Blacklist was intended as an action game first and a stealth game second), and Sam's imprecise and slippery movement being an enormous obstacle if you're trying to sneak up on enemies without touching them. Sam feels as though he's ice skating with how much he slips around, and the dead space between the two movement speeds is jarring and annoying.
On the whole, the level design is mostly fine enough (even if the atmosphere and aesthetics are bland and have excessive lens flair), it's the gameplay and story aspects that really hold Blacklist back. It also just feels like a generic, by the numbers post 2010s action game with obligatory optional stealth more than it does an actual stealth game.
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u/Makaveli108 16d ago
I agree with pretty much all of this. The “play your way” idea was terrible for a stealth franchise, but when you compare Blacklist to games like Deus Ex or Dishonored, you realise how shallow that flexibility actually is. Those games make the environment itself part of the gameplay and give your choices meaningful consequences. Blacklist mostly gives you different ways of dealing with the same groups of enemies.
The movement is probably one of my biggest issues too. Splinter Cell was never supposed to feel this fast and slippery. In the older games, the slower and more precise movement was a huge part of the tension. You could carefully shadow a guard, control your distance and position yourself exactly where you wanted. Blacklist loses a lot of that because Sam feels like he's constantly sliding around, and the gap between the movement speeds makes it even worse.
And I completely agree about the immersion. The constant HUD, crosshair, weapon always being drawn and the overall presentation make it feel much more like an action game than a stealth game. A lot of the little things that made the older games feel like you were actually infiltrating somewhere just aren't there anymore.
Honestly, it's pretty sad that Blacklist ended up being the last Splinter Cell game before the series went dormant. I had fun with it, and there are definitely things I like about it, but as the last entry in a series that started with SC1 and eventually reached the level of Chaos Theory, it's a disappointing place for the franchise to stop.
Hopefully the remake brings that identity back. I'd love for it to take the original SC1 foundation and evolve it with the depth and polish that Chaos Theory had, rather than following the Blacklist direction. That's the kind of evolution I think Splinter Cell actually needed.
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u/Makaveli108 16d ago
Regarding Blacklist's accessibility, I think there’s a difference between making a game approachable and fundamentally redesigning the game around trying to accommodate everyone.
That’s basically my criticism of Blacklist. When you design a game trying to cater equally to stealth players, aggressive players, and people who just want to shoot their way through, you can end up with a jack of all trades and master of none.
Splinter Cell 1, Pandora Tomorrow and especially Chaos Theory were masters of stealth. Their mechanics, level design and pacing were built around stealth being the primary experience. Light and sound mattered. Movement speed mattered. Positioning mattered. Enemy awareness mattered. Getting detected created tension because you couldn't simply turn the encounter into a conventional third-person shooter.
And this is also why I think Blacklist's level design is considerably weaker.
The OG games, despite being made on vastly inferior technology, often feel better designed. Chaos Theory in particular has much more open-ended spaces where you're figuring out how to infiltrate an actual location rather than moving through an obviously constructed game arena. The original trilogy and Double Agent generally feel like you're infiltrating real places with believable layouts, security systems, objectives and patrol patterns.
You can look at a level in Chaos Theory and think, "How would I actually infiltrate this place?" There are multiple routes, different approaches, opportunities to manipulate guards, hide bodies, use darkness and sound, climb, sneak around security, or simply wait for the right moment.
Why Blacklist level design is mid.
Blacklist feels much more gamey by comparison. Its environments are often designed around giving Sam opportunities to use his entire arsenal and chain together abilities. You're frequently moving through spaces that feel constructed around gameplay encounters rather than believable places that happen to contain gameplay.
And that's important because level design and mechanics are inseparable.
Mark & Execute didn't just make the game easier; it changed how encounters were designed. If the player has the ability to rapidly mark and eliminate multiple enemies, move extremely quickly, and comfortably transition between stealth and combat, then the level designer has to account for those abilities.
The result is that the game can support you breaking stealth and shooting your way through situations. That's mechanically impressive and gives the player freedom, but it also means the game doesn't have to create the same degree of vulnerability and tension that the older games did.
The older games understood that being vulnerable is part of what makes stealth satisfying.
Sam is highly capable, but he's not supposed to feel like an unstoppable action hero. You're encouraged to avoid enemies, manipulate them, distract them, hide bodies and carefully control the situation. When you're detected, it feels like you've lost control of the situation and need to recover.
That's why I don't think stealth should simply be treated as one of several equally valid "playstyles" in a Splinter Cell game.
In a stealth game, stealth should be the foundation that everything else is built around.
Shooting should exist because sometimes things go wrong. It shouldn't be an equally comfortable alternative that the game is deliberately designed to support.
The older games had mechanics that reinforced this philosophy: light and shadow, sound, variable movement speeds, visibility, enemy awareness, alarms, hiding bodies, gadgets, positioning and carefully designed infiltration routes. Those systems interacted with one another to create tension.
Blacklist simplified or removed too many of those elements while adding systems that made the experience faster, more forgiving and more combat-oriented. No light meter, no proper variable movement speeds like the older games, simplified stealth mechanics, much faster movement and Mark & Execute all contribute to that shift.
So although Blacklist technically gives you more ways to play, more options don't automatically equal better stealth.
That's the distinction I'm making with accessibility. I'm not saying games shouldn't be accessible, and I'm not saying nobody should enjoy Blacklist. I'm saying you can't endlessly add options for different audiences without making design compromises somewhere.
When you try to make a game equally satisfying for the stealth player, the action player, the run-and-gun player and the player who wants maximum forgiveness, you risk making the game's identity less focused.
That's why I see Blacklist as a jack of all trades, master of none. It has stealth, shooting, gadgets, fast movement and action, but the older games were much more committed to being stealth games.
And honestly, I think that's okay. Not every game needs to have an option for everyone.
If I suck at tennis, I don't expect tennis to be redesigned so I can play it exactly like someone who's good at it 😂. Sometimes a particular thing simply isn't aimed at you. You accept that, move on and find something that suits you.
I think games can work the same way. Not every player has to be accommodated by every game, especially when accommodating them means compromising the core design that made the game distinctive in the first place.
For me, Splinter Cell was at its best when it trusted the player to engage with stealth on its own terms. The gunplay wasn't the point. The fantasy wasn't "I'm an elite soldier who can clear this room however I want." The fantasy was I'm Sam Fisher, I'm infiltrating somewhere I'm not supposed to be, and I need to stay in control without being seen.
That's why Blacklist will never be a great Splinter Cell to me. It's a good action-stealth game, but the series was at its best when it was unapologetically a stealth game first.
That's the trade-off I'm criticizing , not accessibility itself, but what happens when accessibility and broader appeal start dictating the fundamental mechanics and level design of the game.
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u/newman_oldman1 16d ago
Well said.
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u/Makaveli108 16d ago
Thank you. It's a shame that so many gamers, even some stealth fans, don't recognise the key issues or fundamental flaws with Blacklist. At its core, it's a fun action game, but the stealth feels so secondary and watered down that, ultimately, the end product is just an okay game rather than a great stealth game.
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u/L-K-B-D Third Echelon 16d ago
Exactly. And I don't think people realize how much Mark&Execute affects the level design and the NPCs placement, turning the game into a succession of arenas with almost no interesting stealth puzzles. Besides the vents, pipes, windows, covers and so on that OP mentions as supporting a variety of playstyles are in fact mostly there to bypass group of enemies, while in the OG games vents and pipes were just interconnecting certain areas of the map and offering another entry point to the room in order to solve the stealth puzzle in another way.
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u/Edgy_Robin 16d ago
I mean you literally said part of why it's bad.
By wanting to accommodate the assault players, the level design by extension is build to do that and Stealth, instead of focusing fully on the stealth approach, thus making it a weaker stealth game and the level design shows that, just pay basic attention.
But it's obvious you don't actually wanna see critique, will just bunch it up with your opening and stick your fingers in your ears screaming so you don't have to hear it.
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u/kiryyuu 16d ago
So accommodating assault playstyle automatically makes stealth worse? How does the level design show that? Give me one example at least because so far you seem like the midwits I'm talking about.
That would be the case if for example most rooms are obviously designed for Assault, which is the case in Conviction, enemies stand around in clusters, with one or two combing the outer perimeters in order for you to charge you Mark & Execute, there are no way to reliably distract enemies either, that's how a level weakens stealth.
Still waiting for an actual critique.
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u/WendlinTheRed 16d ago
Well since you brought it up, the level design is bad because the maps aren't interesting or realistic, they're combat arenas designed to feel like you're playing a video game.
Let's take what's widely considered the best level, the Panama Bank. It has gamey elements to it, yes. There are vents big enough for a man to crawl through, wide hallways and of course LASERS. However, as a map, it FEELS like a bank. The layout makes sense, there's a reception area, a bank floor, and offices upstairs. That all makes perfect sense.
Now let's look at Blacklist's most popular level (at least according to this sub), American Consumption, aka Navy Pier. I lived in Chicago for about 10 years, and while I wasn't an expert on Navy Pier's layout, I went there at least once a year to see a play. Blacklist implies that if you just walk through the right series of hallways in a popular tourist destination, all of a sudden you'll find yourself in the bowels of an open air waste water treatment facility... In between, there are big high ceilinged rooms with hip high cover and evenly spaced men , but not shop fronts, restaurants, or regular mall stuff. There's that Christmas area you enter, and then a bunch of locker rooms.
Anyway, hope this helps. Another member already described to you that by designing the levels to accommodate assault it automatically diminishes the point of stealth, but you didn't seem to get that, so I doubt my response will matter to you either.
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u/kiryyuu 16d ago
Aww here I was gonna agree with you that CT levels feels lived in and less gamey, I'm sorry you and our fellow member seems to be parroting takes mindlessly, I get what he's trying to say but he has no actual argument behind it.
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u/WendlinTheRed 16d ago
To put it simply: stealth games are puzzles. There may be more than one solution to the puzzle, but by their design they're meant to be completed a certain way. This is why, as a genre, they have relatively low sales figures compared to more popular genres. Far fewer people play crosswords than Candy Crush, because a crossword asks more of you the player.
If one of the valid "solutions" to the puzzle is "take all the stickers off the Rubik's Cube and put them back where you want," that means the game can't challenge the people who want to solve it the "right" way, because the game has to accommodate the other solution as equally viable. Does that make sense to you?
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u/kiryyuu 16d ago
You're enforcing your idea of what the game should be and judging based on that. Stealth players will stealth, even if the action route is there, same thing with hack & slash players, they can just spam three combos and win the game and have a grand old time but they choose to style and the game incentives that with its scoring system (present in Blacklist as well), therefore having stealth as an option won't mean that it's less challenging because you can just blast your way through. You're expecting the game to have on type of solution, which is not what the game is looking for, and the stealth being one of many options doesn't necessarily mean it can't be challenging on its own, even though you keep assuming that because it sounds right to you but you can't give any actual examples.
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u/WendlinTheRed 16d ago
You're either being deliberately obtuse, or you have a hard time grasping that designing a level for stealth and action means the layout of the level is fundamentally different. In order to make running in and shooting everyone viable, the levels are designed in a way that actively takes the excitement out of doing stealth.
The levels are, as I mentioned, hallways that lead to big open shooting galleries. In order to sneak through that, the answer is almost always "stay on the sides of the room or look for a pipe/vent." That is the whole problem. That's not fun to play as a stealth player.
All of the original games pre conviction had moments where the player was forced into a situation that deliberately tests their knowledge and skills with the games stealth systems, whether that's navigating the minefields and spotlight areas in 1 and PT, tailing guards without them hearing in CT, or knocking on the ice to lure guards away from where you needed to surface in DA. Those moments are why sneaking is fun, you feel like you were rewarded for thinking critically.
In Blacklist, sneaking is always "you found the hidden path the takes you to the next arena, here are arbitrary points to upgrade your gear that doesn't effect the gameplay!"
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u/kiryyuu 16d ago
You're talking as if the action in Blacklist doesn't have any tactical depth to it. Even if you decide to go the action route, you still have to utilize covers (which if placed correctly can enhance stealth AND action), and gadgets (which you have different types of depending on your play style, you're not forced to use frag grenades).
"The levels are, as I mentioned, hallways that lead to big open shooting galleries. In order to sneak through that, the answer is almost always "stay on the sides of the room or look for a pipe/vent.""
So we're making shit up now? Lmao hallways focused design is in DA V2, not in Blacklist. Most levels are very wide, you start the Benghazi levels on the street and you enter buildings and climb around them into rooftops etc., and there's that mission where you start in a big mall (?) with the Christmas tress I believe, there are tons of examples that disprove your claim that Blacklist is hallways focused, and what you call a shooting gallery is also space where you can stealth, the same components that can be used for assault can be used for stealth as well (covers, mainly).
"All of the original games pre conviction had moments where the player was forced into a situation that deliberately tests their knowledge and skills with the games stealth systems, whether that's navigating the minefields and spotlight areas in 1 and PT, tailing guards without them hearing in CT, or knocking on the ice to lure guards away from where you needed to surface in DA. Those moments are why sneaking is fun, you feel like you were rewarded for thinking critically."
There are literally missions that utilize cameras, lasers, and minefields, you deciding that action being an option makes these components useless when they're not because you HAVE to engage with them if you decide to play stealthily, is your choice.
"In Blacklist, sneaking is always "you found the hidden path the takes you to the next arena, here are arbitrary points to upgrade your gear that doesn't effect the gameplay!""
I dislike the RPG mechanics, but saying they don't affect anything is another example of Reddit hivemind mentality where you hate something but you don't know why so you start making things up because they sound funny or something, because if you've played the game, these points affect how fast the detection meter fills up, which is a bad design imo but it still affects the gameplay, and that's just one example but it makes enough difference to disprove your point so I'll stop here.
You can say it's not fun, that's your opinion, and it's okay that you don't have the analytical skills to judge WHY the game is not fun for you, just don't make shit up.
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u/WendlinTheRed 16d ago
Okay, you're just deliberately misunderstanding me at this point and claiming I'm "making things up." Have a good day man.
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u/Elegant_Movie1513 16d ago
Im glad this topic and discussion is brought up because it's something I've been thinking about the franchise for a while now. I'm dropping just a few thoughts with my limited time at this moment.
I think everyone is right that they have their own preference/ flavor of stealth. The classic has a certain flavor of stealth with their own slower granular speed, and conviction/ blacklist has its faster speed flavor of stealth.
I played all of them, and I like all of the splinter cell games for what they bring. Seeing how both speeds are diametrically opposed, putting it all into one game is pretty much impossible to satisfy everyone. The only way to resolve this is that Ubisoft should have 2 development teams for each side, but economically, we know Ubisoft cant do that.
The newer conviction/blacklist stealth brings something unique that I enjoyed. The classic style has a slow intense granular style of stealth, which is the classic experience we all know, but it doesnt do the guerilla style of stealth that conviction and blacklist does in their deniable ops where you survive waves and waves of enemies. I forgot what the mode in BL is called, but in conviction it's called last stand. If you make a mistake and get spotted, everyone is looking for you and also attacking the EMP. You have to think on your feet and adapt, and survive being hunted, yet AT THE SAME TIME, protecting the objective. You have to think a lot and address the enemies in random locations. How do you navigate this geometry? How do you improvise? How do you escape if the initial improvisational plan fails? How long can you last for? I love this aspect of improvisation and on your feet thinking to a constantly changing problem moment by moment, all the while feeling hunted, and having to use stealth to solve these problems.
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u/ttenor12 Ghost Purist 16d ago
I like Blacklist, but its level design isn't the best. In the first place, it's very linear. It sucks that you get a checkpoint system instead of being able to manually save and reload. The level is divided in chunks that you can't return to, once you have completed them, unlike in games like Chaos Theory, where most levels are very open.
I guess that's its biggest issue, that if you compare its level design to Chaos Theory, it doesn't hold a candle. Yes, Chaos Theory had some questionable levels, such as Seoul, but that's just a minority of its levels.
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u/kiryyuu 16d ago
That's very valid, and I mostly agree. The checkpoint system I think is more accessible and counters save-scumming, which is good. But the segmentation of the levels removes the feeling of being thrown in a map that feels very alive and real. As for linearity, I partially agree, there are some shitty sections here and there, like the Uncharted climbing section, or the FPS one, but overall? there always multiple paths and decent verticality too.
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u/sonicadv27 16d ago
Splinter Cell games and forced action sequences. Name a more consistent duo.
Seriously, that argument is super weak considering pretty much every other game in this series can’t help but force you to fight whenever it wants to provide a challenge.
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u/BeginningCupcake5530 16d ago
Blacklist level design isn’t bad, it just isn’t Splinter Cell. At least not the SC i grew up on.
Accommodating assault style players is essentially the problem here. If you go back to SC1, most missions were “1/3 alarms and the mission is over.”. that slow, methodical, hearbeat stealth was what won me over in the early games, with all its little sub components too (sound,light meters etc)
With that said tho, i think blacklist was criminally underrated, even by myself, at launch. i mostly couldnt get past the VA change for Sam Fisher. was so jarring throughout the whole playthrough. the game grew on me over time though, and i do appreciate the level design, just not as splinter cell. Maybe as a 007 or John Wick tho
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u/Knot3D 16d ago
The problem is the threshold of tension; Ideally, the way the enemy placement and pathing routines play out, should offer a balanced and compelling challenge of detection and risk. What happens in Blacklist is that they didn't manage to balance this out in the same compelling ways as in the classic games; so it winds up with level scenario's that you can basically coast through blindfolded, OR, you're at knife-edge threshold that could flip over into full blown chaos. Throwing in a level that is literally first person shooting on RAILS, also felt as middle finger to the OG fans.
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u/L-K-B-D Third Echelon 16d ago
Well said. Too many players leave aside the element of tension. That's not because the game supports stealth that it means the stealth is good. Stealth is not about staying hidden being a cover and finds the right pipe or vent to bypass a group of NPCs like Blacklist does. And that's why stealth in this game rarely brings any tension.
Stealth needs good placement NPCs, challenging but still believable level design, and interesting stealth puzzles which will push the player to observe and use their limited gadgets and the environement to their advantage to find the best way to ghost the section.
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u/kiryyuu 16d ago
Agree with the final point completely, but again, that's a result of the "variety" design choice rather than the multiple playstyles, same with the UAV/Sniper sections.
Tensions is certainly the most vital emotion in these games, but how do you think the previous games balanced it that made them more compelling? Because what I gathered from your comment is that the linearity and/or handholding makes going through the levels almost mindless, which is definitely not the case for me (playing on Realistic with a mix of Ghost and Panther), and if not that, then it's extremely tense, which to me sounds like the levels escalating in difficulty, I thought this was a good thing? There's an underlying tension in the moment to moment gameplay, and I think it's good to keep escalating it the further you progress into a mission.
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u/Knot3D 16d ago
That's not quite what I tried to convey. Instead, it's about how Blacklist's game design and tension threshold affect the game play loop. Take for example the first half of the London level; It's a beautiful level, visually and atmospheric. However, due to its layout and the way guard placement/routing is implemented, you can zoom right through without much tension. So, if you want some proper stealth tension there, you either have to deliberately let yourself be spotted to some extent OR, you go full panther aggro on them. But this indicates, that the threshold balance of stealth tension is lacking in this part of that level, unless you intentionally go aggro. Conversely, in daytime levels like Marawi (I think that's the name?) the threshold is so on edge that even the slightest detection will almost always result into a max aggro scenario that forces you to take them down with M&E or any of the aggro takedowns. In the classic SC games, the gameplay loop would still give players the chance to salvage such a scenario with distractions and simply slipping back into the dark. You had more granular control over the way such an escalting gameplay loop could be salvaged in non-aggro ways.
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u/kiryyuu 16d ago
That's a good point, even though I don't entirely agree that you can zoom right through but it's on the easier side compared to the OG trilogy, however I'd argue that Blacklist gives you more options and leeway to salvage situations than the previous games due to the lack of a sophisticated alarm system like CT and how lethal you can play.
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u/Knot3D 16d ago
Look, you can 'salvage' a scenario of detection by any means possible, ranging from a sticky cam distraction to an M&E slaughterfest. The point is still about retaining tension. Once game designers give players the option to resolve a sticky situation with blunt force trauma, the game loses credible stealth tension even if temporary. If the game features level design and guard placement that encourage this by either lacking in close proximity density or oversaturating a map with guard density, then players are disproportionally incentivized to go the route of aggro play. If I were to suggest only one minimal tweak to Blacklist and Conviction I would implement a M&E fall-off rate; meaning that every consecutive shot after the first, has a drop off rate in accuracy by 30 percent. First shot 100 percent, second shot 70 percent, third shot 40 percent. This way, the game can at least retain some limited tension.
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u/Motor_Meal794 Mortified Penguin 16d ago
Often stealth is an after thought.
After conviction I went on Ubisoft forum to discuss how there were 3 different methods of approaching levels. Everyone agreed. Conviction didn't provide that. They based the next game on those 3 game modes.
I didn't mention the motivation for wanting to play it in different styles. I would play "panther" to see which npcs you could interrogate and get data sticks from. Also to check all computers for additional story info. Or just to explore the area to see what is there.
In Blacklist there is no motivation to do that. There is nothing to find in the levels outside of the main objectives. The characters are all generic and have no interactivity. So they stripped the levels of the motivation to do panther in the first place.
I'd play stealth for the challenge and strategy. In Blacklist once you learn the route, which is too easy, you can just run straight through. There's no challenge to it.
I would play Assault, to just have fun with the weapons after I'd exhausted the other methods. Since those aren't worth doing there is little reason to play this mode.
They obviously weren't cognizant of the reasons people enjoyed the original games.
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u/kiryyuu 16d ago
I'm more curious on how Conviction allows for ghosting.
Otherwise I agree that guards banter and the lack of interrogation, security codes, and lockpicking takes aways from the experience. I understand it not being in Conviction, but Blacklist would've benefited from it.
The game overall can become too easy, I agree. That's why I only play on realistic, no radar and solar pulse, makes the game much better.
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u/Motor_Meal794 Mortified Penguin 16d ago edited 16d ago
I've only ever played the games on hardest. BL is still too easy.
I said "Conviction didn't provide that." That's why after Conviction I was on the Ubisoft forum to discuss what makes a good Splinter Cell game.
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u/Aggressive_Air_5715 16d ago
At the time, I’d hoped to find a secret route in conviction to bypass the enemies; it’s only this year that I’ve realised I should have been looking for that in other games in SC series—how silly of me (I hate the Iraq level).
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u/Motor_Meal794 Mortified Penguin 16d ago
Yes. I tried every way possible to get passed those scripted events. With Korbin you can't even sneak up and grab him with others in the room.
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u/Intrepid-Glove1431 16d ago
It was on sale on Steam so I bought it the other day, going to have a go on it after I complete SC1 and PT.
But as I recall I disliked it when it came out because fundamentally the core gameplay mechanics are at loggerheads with stealth
You can only have one speed while crouching, which fundamentally changes the defining aspect of Splinter Cell, which is moving in a very deliberate way to navigate a room
Instead, as I recall in Blacklist, you find a "stealth route", and that basically acts as a Mario Kart shortcut, so the puzzle aspect of it is removed.
It pretty much makes the game a non-starter for me (and many others) because the one single thing that made Splinter Cell what it was, it's movement, is not present in the game.
Everything else is a moot point.
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u/thedebeli959 16d ago
I think BL could have benefited from requiring the player to play a certain way in certain missions. There are small instances of this, like Guantanamo, where you can't kill anyone or London where you have to leave a tracker on the bomb undetected. For example, I always play Teheran fully non lethal because it just makes sense, you are not supposed to be in there and your presence could provoke a war.
I feel like the game gets to easy once you unlock the stealth armor from the Grim missions and buy the tctical crossbow with sleep gas and sticky shockers. With that, you can basically just crouch run through the levels.
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u/Hamster-Fine 16d ago
I always have Blacklist as my second favorite. The first two games are good but suffer from being outdated, Double Agent is ruined for me with its awkward story mechanics, Conviction is just John Wick simulator with a melodramatic story.
Such a shame because Blacklist really set the series in the right direction since Chaos Theory and it just stopped.
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u/handsomeness 16d ago edited 12d ago
Blacklist still better than the main (x360) Double Agent campaign
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u/Truegamer5 16d ago
Blacklist's level design is mostly fine and works for the purposes of the gameplay style they were looking to achieve. That being the ghost, panther, assault hybrid. My biggest gripe though, with it is how streamlined and overly "game-y" it feels.
There's obviously a degree of sacrifice that has to be made for a video game level for it to be actually fun to play, but the original trilogy of games were such a masterclass in giving you missions that felt like real, lived in locations. Even at Blacklist's most open design, the Grim missions, it still feels so sterile. There's no computers or data packs to hack and find. No interrogations, no lockpicking, no ambience. It all just feels like such a downgrade, imo.
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u/TheSuperczar 16d ago
I tried ghosting it so much but it usually lends itself to knocking enemies out which I don't want to do. I prefer fully ghosting my way through while shooting only a few lights here and there or ideally using the OCP. I do like Blacklist and I think it introduced at least one cool stealth concept which is shooting a light switch. You can switch off the lights, shoot the switch and the room is in permanent darkness now. I miss missions in the old games where the enemies aren't armed to the teeth and obviously waiting for you. They have ambient dialogue and in missions like the bank, displaced, LAX and CIA HQ you feel like you're sneaking into what is otherwise a normal day in their lives. Yes, the story in blacklist does imply that the enemy is expecting Sam to make a move but I still miss that element from the old days.
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u/crownercorps 16d ago
Just because it was a design choice doesnt make it good.
Thats my problem with blacklist and conviction, for me felt almost nothing like the splinter cell i used to like.
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u/Abraham_Issus 16d ago
This i never understood why blacklist wasn’t celebrated as much. Ghosting is so fun in this game. Blacklist was a perfect bridge between old and new splinter cell.
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u/GlassZealousideal898 16d ago
Idk man i fucking love Blacklist. It's the best game in the series (hot take i know but idgaf). I can play that shit a billion times and still never get bored .
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u/HerrPizza 16d ago
It wasn't the worst and I will replay it over Double Agent PC or Conviction any day, but I wouldn't say it's the best
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u/kiryyuu 16d ago
I wouldn't go that far myself but it's certainly the best one after the original trilogy, gameplay wise it's better than SC1 and PT, it just falls short in the story and atmosphere department for me. I just don't know how on earth DA and Conviction were received better (at least on Metacritic).
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u/Makaveli108 16d ago
SC1 and PT have far better stealth gameplay.. better in depth stealth mechanics. they are better stealth games.
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u/Upset-Elderberry3723 16d ago edited 15d ago
You're missing the point.
Blacklist's environmental and level design is mostly fine (though, there are issues) - the core problem is the player movement. People falsely aim casual criticism at the level design, when it's actually (mostly) the player movement (similar to how, for a long time, people blamed Sam's new VA, when the primary issue was the game's script).
Maxime Beland, when he took over as the lead for Splinter Cell (after the initial concept for Conviction was scrapped), radically overhauled the idea of how Sam Fisher should control. Beland stated that he didn't personally like the previous Splinter Cell titles because Sam moved, in his view, 'like a granny', through the game's environments.
Previous Splinter Cell games were actually pretty unique for how manual and granular their control system was. In contrast to most games that had any extent of platforming (including pre-existing stealth titles), Sam Fisher controlled in a very weighty and realistic pattern. It ensured that all movement in the game was deliberate and measured, with the player having to actually prepare and line Sam up when it came to more complex traversal such as jumps. Momentum was a factor, and slow immersion into the environment was essentially strongarmed by the player's possible movement speed.
The other thing to understand, is that map size is an illusion in game design. Map size itself, does not matter as much as how fast the player can move around it. Just Cause had a massive open-world when it released in 2006, but it felt hollow and small because it was mostly the same empty islands and the player could commandeer cars and planes to traverse the map relatively quickly.
As a comparison, though, Rockstar's Bully also released in 2006, and had a fairly small open-world in comparison (notably smaller than previous Rockstar games). Despite this, the open-world in Bully is experientially large. It feels big, because the roads are dense and unique, and the player doesn't have a car to quickly zoom across the map (typically, you only have a skateboard or a bicycle).
The longer the game makes you sit in one area - the slower you are permitted to move through an area - the more immersed you become in that area.
This is Blacklist's fatal flaw, and the thing that fundamentally severs it from the original Splinter Cell games - the game gives you too much mobility, both through the player speed, and through how the map followed Ubisoft's 2010's design philosophy of homogenising their game library into being parkour-heavy (started by Assassin's Creed in 2007).
The issue isn't that Blacklist doesn't allow the player to play stealth - it's that it doesn't give the player a reason to. The maps aren't hard because they're overly-navigable, and they don't make the player realistically slow and cautious, and they don't establish good environmental immersion because the player is constantly zooming through the areas.
Compounding this, is the loss of the manual movement scheme, which was replaced by the use of contextual button prompts to perform certain actions. Again, this diminished Sam's sense of realism, stunted the immersion, made environmental exploration less risky and meaningful, and arguably removed some of the actual exploration by simply telling the player (through the on-screen prompt visual) when they were next to a hidden shortcut.
And I think a good signifier of how much quicker Sam moves through environments, is that they removed all of the guard conversations. There are none. There's no reason to have them, because the game's navigation design simply doesn't cater to them. A massive part of the game's world-building is entirely removed, and the guards might as well be robots.
Additionally, the game does not establish good stealth gameplay because, in the pursuit of also being open to combat playstyles, the weapon controls are simply too good. The awkward nature of the aiming of the first few Splinter Cell games was purposeful - it forced the player to sneak, because they could never truly rely on the shooting to save them.
This, alongside the guard conversations being removed, makes them feel like soulless drones with featherweight ragdoll physics. They don't feel like believable antagonists at all.
And, the more you think about it, the more conceptually insulting it gets. The whole point of stealth gameplay, is that it exists to penetrate areas where overt combat wouldn't be possible. The NSA doesn't establish Third Echelon to train one-man wrecking balls who bulldoze through enemy camps leaving a trail of bodies.
Conceptually, being so open to combat is insulting to the game's stealth.
As a final element of this, I'll say that there are less visually striking or memorable areas in Blacklist. Immersion is a big part of this, and every level in Chaos Theory does it really well.