Splinter Cell Conviction revealed
It's completely different.
The next game in the Splinter Cell series will be called Conviction, and it will be heading to Xbox 360 and PC at the end of the year.
Details of the fifth Sam Fisher outing were rumoured earlier this month, and it seems Ubisoft has decided not to wait until its Ubidays event to reveal the title.
This time around everything will be different, according to IGN, despite Double Agent's critical success. So the original Ubisoft Montreal team has been called back on board to turn it all on its head.
"[Double Agent] was good, but repetitive over time," Mathieu Ferland, senior producer for the game, told IGN. "After three games we decided to make a big turnaround in the franchise."
Sam Fisher is now a fugitive, pursued by the very government he once served. And to survive he'll need to create an underground network of allies to help him out. But he'll be without all the flashy gizmos he's used to, and will have to rely on using his surroundings and quick thinking over night-vision goggles and remote cameras.
Stealth will still be a key feature, but it's more than simply lurking in darkness. Losing yourself in a crowd and creating distractions will be important, as will using your surroundings as makeshift weapons.
Which all sounds rather similar to Assassin's Creed - the other title in development at Ubisoft Montreal. It seems Sam Fisher will now more closely resemble Jason Bourne than James Bond.
"Improvisation is a concept we wanted to bring to the gamers, as we felt it was one of the strongest shared elements of all spy agents. They have to be able to deal with anything, anytime, anywhere - [but] faster, smarter," Ferland added.
All of which has our appetite truly whetted. Expect more information to crop up soon, as we get ever closer to the looming Ubidays bonanza.