It's been two years after the events of Conviction, Third Echelon has been terminated after a failed assassination attempt on the President's life. But when a new terrorist plot known as "The Blacklist" puts America's fate hanging in the balance, Patricia Caldwell, the US President, responds by forming Fourth Echelon, a new special operations & counter-terrorism unit with former Third Echelon agent Sam Fisher as the commander of the unit alongside his ally Anna Grímsdóttir as the unit's tech-ops control officer and second-in command. Added as a new member are Isaac Briggs, former CIA agent and new Fourth Echelon agent and Charlie Cole, 4E's resident hacker and technology officer. Now the unit's new mission: hunt down those responsible for the attack and stop the Blacklist countdown before its too late.
Gameplay
In Blacklist, players assume control of series protagonist Sam Fisher as he seeks to stop a terrorist group called the Engineers. The gameplay emphasizes stealth, and utilizes the third-person perspective. During the game, players can rotate its camera, run, crouch and leap over obstacles. Since Blacklist intended to continue the "aggressive stealth" of Conviction while retaining the traditional stealth features of the older games, it combines action and stealth, and allows players to use different approaches and methods to complete objectives and defeat enemies. Players can complete levels without being noticed by the non-playable characters' artificial intelligence by taking cover or using other traditional stealth methods. If the player chooses to kill enemies, other enemies are alerted when they see their companions' dead bodies. To avoid this, players can hide corpses. Fisher can also create a strategically advantageous dark environment by destroying nearby lights, and is equipped with customizable night-vision and sonar goggles to detect enemies in darkness and see through walls. He also has the Tri-Rotor, a compact surveillance drone which can spy on enemies, create distractions, give electric shocks, and self-destruct to kill enemies.
Players can play a more aggressive run-and-gun game by using gadgets and weapons to eliminate enemies. They can interact with environmental objects, such as ledges and zip-lines, to navigate levels.Conviction's mark-and-execute system returns in Blacklist, with refinements and additions to allow players to mark several targets. When they attack, they can kill all marked targets instantly.Improvements made the system work more fluidly.A variety of enemies (including soldiers and dogs) are encountered in the game, following the protagonist and alerting their companions. Players have the option to kill them, leave them untouched, or incapacitate them, and the game classifies their choices in one of three categories: Ghost (stealthy play), Panther (stealthy, aggressive play), and Assault (aggressive play).
When players kill (or avoid) targets and complete objectives, experience points and money are awarded to buy (or improve) weapons, and upgrade the Paladin airship and Sam's suit and equipment; the upgrades improve efficiency in completing missions. Experience gained depends on the difficulty level and how the game is played; the greater the stealth, the greater the reward. According to Ubisoft Toronto, the system, known as "universal economy", was intended to satisfy players; every action has a corresponding reward.
The Paladin is the game's hub. Between missions, players can interact with crew members on the ship and view the game's objectives. Crew members also offer the protagonist side missions to complete. Before a mission Fisher can deploy the strategic mission interface, allowing players to see enemy positions and plan attacks and routes. Players can also use the interface to access multiplayer modes and missions.
Although the game has interrogation sequences involving questioning (or torturing) targets, it does not have Conviction's interactive torture scenes. Players can still decide whether to spare their targets or kill them after interrogation, and these decisions influence the relationship between Fisher and other crew members.
Blacklist has platform-specific features, including voice integration with Xbox 360's Kinect peripheral which allows players to distract enemies before attacking. A player can also use the Kinect sensor to control the protagonist with their body instead of the Xbox 360 controller. In the Wii U version, the Gamepad controller's touchscreen is an interface, accessing gadgets and other features from the protagonist's arm-mounted computer (OPSAT), and incorporating screen and motion controls to highlight enemies with thermal vision when using Killing in Motion. The Wii U version was not shipped with the game's cooperative mode.
Characters
Blacklist again features Sam Fisher, a former Third Echelon Splinter Cell who is now the spymaster and commander of the newly installed Fourth Echelon. The game also sees the return of Fisher's old ally, Anna (Grim) Grímsdóttir, and new characters such as Isaac Briggs and Charlie Cole. Several supporting characters from Conviction reappear, including Victor Coste, Patricia Caldwell, and Andriy Kobin. There is also a cameo from former 3rd Echelon agents Archer and Kestrel.
Campaign
Sam Fisher is leaving Andersen Air Force Base when a terrorist organization assaults the base, wounding Paladin Nine Security co-worker and best friend Victor Coste. Soon afterwards a faction known as the Engineers takes responsibility, announcing a series of attacks on the United States, the titular Blacklist, which will continue until the U.S. recalls its troops deployed abroad.
U.S. President Caldwell assigns Fisher, his colleague Charlie Cole, CIA agent Isaac Briggs and Anna Grímsdóttir to Fourth Echelon, a new special-ops and counter-terrorism unit. Charged with stopping the Engineers, the group uses the cargo plane Paladin as its command center. Fourth Echelon first aims to secure Andriy Kobin, a CIA hostage believed to possess information on the Engineers. Fisher extracts him from a safe house in Benghazi, and learns that his associates have ties to the Engineers. Infiltrating an insurgent stronghold, he finds an executed U.S. soldier and learns from a video recording that the executioner is Majid Sadiq; a former MI6 agent, Sadiq demands the Fourth Echelon to stop interfering.
Believing that their next target is a water-filtration plant near Navy Pier, Fisher infiltrates the Engineers and prevents the release of a biological toxin into the water supply. Kobin then tells him that mercenary supplier Reza Nouri may be allied with the Engineers. Sam assaults Nouri's mansion, capturing him for questioning. When he learns about an Engineer sleeper cell in London, Fisher infiltrates an abandoned mill and discovers chemical bombs in a shipping bay. Opening a bomb to plant a tracking device, he is exposed to nerve gas. Incapacitated and apparently dying, Fisher is captured by Sadiq and rescued by Briggs; in the ensuing confrontation, Sadiq escapes while Briggs provides first aid to Sam.
Due to files recovered by Fisher in London (and made public by the president), the American public and Congress both believe that Iran is funding the Blacklist, and The United States and Iran are headed towards war. Looking for more solid proof of Iran's involvement, Fisher infiltrates Quds Force headquarters in Tehran(previously a U.S embassy). Inside, he discovers that Iran has nothing to do with the Blacklist, and that the files he recovered were planted by The Engineers in order to lure The United States into a war. Fisher narrowly escapes Tehran by using a Predator Drone to blow up the Iranian vehicles chasing him, causing an international incident.
The fully healed Fisher and Briggs then deploy to Philadelphia. When they find four bombs being loaded onto trains, they follow the bombs to a rail yard and disarm them. Boarding a departing train of Engineers, Fisher fights his way through the cars and pursues an Engineer leader (who escapes into a station and is killed by a police officer).
Briggs uses his CIA credentials to have Fisher sent to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, allowing him to continue interrogating Nouri. Nouri confirms that Sadiq is head of the Engineers, and says that Sadiq knows the identities of the Fourth Echelon leaders. Escaping from the prison, Briggs and Fisher reach the Paladin in Yucatán and escape when the plane is attacked by a Mexican drug cartel. Fourth Echelon restarts the plane with Kobin's help, and Sadiq executes a Blacklist attack on the largest U.S. gas reserve in Louisiana.
As the president begins continuity-of-government procedures, Fisher shuts down the burning plant and averts a chain reaction to the next reserve. When he captures another senior Engineer, he learns about Sadiq's final plan: to disclose all U.S. military secrets. Sadiq kidnaps the Secretary of Defense and holds them at the Site F government bunker under Denver International Airport. Disregarding the president's order, Fourth Echelon infiltrates the base. Despite Cole's infiltration of Sadiq's team, Sadiq's men capture Briggs and torture the secretary of defense into authorizing the transfer. Briggs intervenes, killing the secretary and halting Sadiq's plan.
The Engineers try to flee Site F, using Briggs and the hostages as human shields. Fisher, disguised as an Air Force hostage, helps Delta Force marksmen open fire on Sadiq and his men. Sadiq escapes on foot, and Fisher disarms and seriously wounds him. Sadiq boasts that he has already won; if he dies twelve nations supporting the Engineers will declare war on the U.S. and if he is tried, he will leak U.S. information. Although Fisher spares Sadiq, he detains him. President Caldwell publicly covers Sadiq's imprisonment by announcing his death, and the game ends as Fourth Echelon continues its operations; in a post-credits scene, a recovered Coste and Fisher prepare to interrogate Sadiq.
Development
Ubisoft Montreal's success inspired the company to continue its Canadian expansion, and a new studio, Ubisoft Toronto, was announced on July 6, 2009. Headed by Jade Raymond, the studio focuses on the creation of triple-A video games and intellectual property. It worked on a new installment of the Splinter Cell series, which was in parallel development with an unnamed project, and the Toronto team was made up of Ubisoft Montreal's core Conviction team. Maxime Béland, who had worked on Conviction, was the game's creative director, and in November 2010 Raymond confirmed that her studio was developing Splinter Cell 6. Ubisoft Toronto was the game's lead developer, with assistance from Ubisoft Montreal. Ubisoft Shanghai developed the game's co-operative multiplayer mode. The Toronto studio focused on the game's Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions, with the Wii U version developed by Ubisoft Shanghai.
In 2010, the series' fifth installment, Conviction, was released. Although it received generally positive reviews, it was criticized by series fans for lacking some features. Béland considered Conviction a "stepping stone" for him when he prepared for the development of Blacklist. The development team studied Conviction's reviews and feature lists, deciding to discard its "black-and-white" stealth approach, and also deciding to bring back the Spies vs. Mercs mode introduced in Pandora Tomorrow. Béland called the mode's return "the easiest decision of his life", since the team considered its absence Conviction's greatest misstep. Ubisoft sent questionnaires through Uplay to thousands of players to collect feedback on Conviction's new features. When players called Conviction's campaign weak and short, the team added a stronger storyline and greater character depth by introducing the Fourth Echelon and Fisher as a leader (a series first). To encourage repeat play the team introduced the aircraft hub and the strategic mission interface, a player menu.
According to Ubisoft Toronto founder Jade Raymond, the series had become too grueling and complicated for modern gamers, and its popularity had suffered relative to Ubisoft flagship franchises such as Assassin's Creed and Far Cry.The Toronto studio hoped to introduce the franchise to a broader audience, while remaining tactical and hardcore for long-term series fans. It introduced a perfectionist mode, significantly increasing the game's difficulty by removing some of Fisher's abilities. The team also introduced accessible, action-oriented gameplay segments which would suit new players, crafting open-ended levels which could be reached with different approaches to broaden the variety of play. The developers re-worked the controls to increase gameplay fluidity, allowing players to automatically leap over objects and traverse a simplified environment.
During Blacklist's development, its team faced a variety of challenges. The first was to create stealth which was satisfying and fun for players. According to the team, players gain satisfaction from stealth with freedom and choices which allow them to develop a plan. Players must experiment, with each decision having consequences. Game director Patrick Redding compared it to the development of an ecosystem; the team designed a dynamic artificial intelligence which would react differently to players' actions, making levels feel alive and adding randomness. Encouraging the "panther" style of play (aggressive stealth), the team incorporated elements from the original Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell (where one mistake would abort a mission) and Conviction (where stealth seamlessly becomes combat). This approach, the team thought, could help players to feel like elite, silent predators.
Series veteran Michael Ironside did not reprise his role as the voice of Sam Fisher. His part was played by Eric Johnson, who also performed the motion capture. In a Blacklist developer diary, Ironside said that he was passing the torch to another actor. According to Ubisoft executives the change was made to take advantage of new performance-capture technology to enrich the game experience, and Ironside assisted Johnson with the role. Elias Toufexis, voice and performance-capture actor for Andriy Kobin in Splinter Cell: Conviction, said that he would return for the new game.
Unlike Conviction, the game would have no interactive torture sequences. Instead, players could choose whether to kill or incapacitate a target after interrogation. The system was not complex, and it was hoped that players would choose based on instinct. According to Béland, every player choice is gray and there are no right or wrong choices. However, the game demo has an interactive torture scene in which players can decide how deeply a knife penetrates a person's shoulder. After a mixed-to-negative response, Ubisoft removed the scene from its final product.
Conclusion
So overall ,the game is good and visits many places throughout the world .The skills of the protoganist just leaves us in a state of awe .But ,when it comes to finishing missions it is very difficult and time consuming since the missions are very lengthy which could have been reduced .The guns and advanced equipments used are excellent . The graphics is good. The storyline is a decent enough one . Hence due to the above stated pros and cons , the pros outweigh the cons and the game was a success when it was launched .
The game was released worldwide for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on October 21, 2016. Battlefield 1 received positive reviews by critics and was seen as an improvement over previous installments Battlefield 4 and Battlefield Hardline. Most of the praise was directed towards its World War I theme, multiplayer modes, visuals, sound design, and single-player campaign.