Splinter Cell 3 on Xbox/PC this Christmas
With further console versions to follow in Europe in early 2005. Ubisoft also confirms the name change, dropping the "3" in favour of something else entirely.
Splinter Cell 3 will launch on Xbox and PC in time for Christmas, Ubisoft confirmed this week, and on other formats in the first quarter of 2005 in PAL territories. This means the PlayStation 2, GameCube and probably GBA, as if it needed spelling out.
The publisher also confirmed that the third instalment in the Splinter Cell series will be called Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, following speculation along those lines recently based on a filing with the US Patents & Trademarks Office.
Furthermore, an N-Gage version is underway at Gameloft, and should feature Bluetooth wireless multiplayer and N-Gage Arena support when it ships. At this stage there's no direct talk of a Game Boy Advance version, but we'd imagine that's covered under "other formats".
First unveiled at E3 this year, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory as its now known won countless plaudits for its gorgeous visuals on the PC, which make huge split-legged leaps beyond the bounds of what the original Splinter Cell and Pandora Tomorrow managed.
You can read far more about such things in our E3 write-up, which can be found elsewhere on the site here.