Released in 2010 as a kind of disruptive reinvention of the Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell games (collectively Splinter Cell), my relationship with this title was largely always in comparison to Hitman games. The era of gaming was one where many properties that were shifting from a slow, clunky engagement to faster, smoother and more intuitive approaches to gameplay.
While extremely polarizing at the time, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction (Conviction) has largely been forgotten – not even getting mentioned when people bring out their nostalgia for Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (Chaos Theory). It is, however, oddly relevant to the politics of today.
So, in my opinion, it’s also an interesting case where Capital-G Gamers were right that a game was bad… but they got the explanations backwards wrong. That’s, interesting but a lot to unpack.
I. THE GAME
As was standard for Splinter Cell, and similar titles at the time, it is a third person stealth/shooter where you control super-patriot super-soldier, Sam Fisher (Sam) as succeeds in impossible mission after impossible mission – rarely using a weapon bigger than a stealth pistol, instead relying on stealth and strategy over firepower.
A. Story (Mad Sam)
Presumably to divorce the game from expectations to be like the previous games, it begins with a thesis statement that the Sam of the previous games (along with his patriotism) is dead – we will instead be playing a revenant seeking to revenge. Anna Grímsdóttir (Grim), formally his technical support, is in Sam’s ear, fulfilling all the roles of a command centre
There is exactly one mission spanning two levels where this is the case, and after that we’re back to using advanced infiltration technique to unravel a conspiracy where a shadowy entity (who are never exposed or investigated) have corrupted the hero organization from the previous games (Third Echelon) and are going to use it enact a coup against the President of the United States of America (‘Merica)
Because all the games branded under Tom Clancy have an obsession with military and technology, this involves “hiding” massive ElectroMagnetic Pulse (EMP) generators and a whole Private Military Company (PMC) to roll in with around Washington DC, as well nameless enemies using science fiction gear while they stealth bodysuits and goofy headsets.
At the end of the second act, Sam’s need for revenge is nullified and the story shifts to being one about protecting his family, and the President… who has kind of been kidnappedcaptured by ninjas.
He does this by blowing up his old office building, then single-handedly taking out both the PMC and all the Splinter Cell agents who are apparently working for Third Echelon now in the role that was previously singularly defined and filled by Sam. For reasons that are never made clear, they wear their headsets diagonally across one eye only.
(As a side note, while I can’t find a reliable source for the claim but allegedly Tom Clancy did not approve of Splinter Cell initially because he felt the multi-vision tri-lens goggles were unrealistic, unbelievable and too sci-fi. In Conviction not only do we now get sonar goggles that can detect lasers (somehow), but we have EMP generator that would be visible from dozens of miles away in a massive, abandoned lot in Washington DC. We are completely detached from so reality it’s hilarious this game as a “Realistic” difficulty setting.)
The final scene involves Sam and Grim saving the day, the President of ‘Merica condoning extrajudicial murder, and the player deciding if that murder is performed by Sam or Grim. Regardless of how you choose, Sam declares he’s still not back, and then the ending shows him rescuing his PMC buddy.
B. Gameplay (Save ‘Merica)
Sam saves ‘Merica through a combination of stealth and extreme violence, having access to unlimited pistol ammo, as well as all the guns and explosive devices he can salvage (or access via “Weapon Stashes” that also allow you to trade purely non-diegetic points for upgrades).
The stealth elements are primarily accomplished through parkour-like agility, with Sam running up walls then hand-over-handing along ledges with the energy of a teenager rather than a man in his fifties. Darkness also plays a role, with devices and bullets being available for removing light and otherwise manipulate the behaviour of the guard.
Most notably, the game implemented a unique “Mark and Executive” mechanic that allowed you to set up multiple targets and then let you insta-kill the limited number of them with one press of a button. Different weapons and upgrades impact how many enemies you can do this with, and the ability is refreshed by enacting a (brutal) hand-to-hand combat kill (which often involves shooting a gun).
This all creates a loop where the player moves into an area, then must identify opportunities to kill or bypass escalating amounts of heavily armed enemies. There are 3 gimmick levels that mix up the formula, but the general idea is you solve puzzles by planning and executing stealthy murder and evasion.
Thus saving ‘Merica.
There is also a co-op story which, I never played much of because even when there were servers available my ping was ass and I was invariably partnered with someone who had so much practice they were well past the status of virtuoso.
C. Replayability
The game comes with 3 difficulty settings and multi-player options, so you would think that it had a focus on long term appeal – but oddly, no. With few stats tracked, and you only needing about half the mini-achievements to max out the few items you really use or where upgrades make a difference.
Some levels allow more exploration than others, but it does suffer from the problem that was becoming increasingly common as better graphics were expected of the same generations of consoles – the levels get smaller. The story makes this worse, with the majority of infiltrations taking place in a series of corridors rather than complex, interlocking environments where you can approach from numerous angles or really take advantage of Sam’s acrobatic ability.
A large part of this seems to be due to the need to make encounters “climactic” through engaging multiple enemies. Since Sam can kill any 1 enemy instantly, they get deployed in mobs and so even the levels with the most options and verticality, like the EMP lab – put your final encounter in a box with half a dozen guards and strategic cover.
The game also isn’t really designed for a full stealth approach, so even people trying to flex by playing “stealth” on the highest difficulty level end up murdering guards when the game requires it.1 “Splinter Cell: Conviction | Full Game | Stealth Walkthrough | Realistic Difficulty” (22 September 2020) TGP482 YouTube <www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV_JYI8wRfM> Similarly, while there’s a lot of dialog you can overhear, it never really adds up to much – mostly it just makes you realize how many of the tools that you’re given have few opportunities to be useful.
Lastly, often to hide the loading and unloading of assets, the game makes use of unskippable cutscenes rendered in-engine that can go on for a painfully long time if you’re just itching to reattempt the level – actively ruining the experience of any sort of novelty run where you expect to die a lot.
II. THE MESSAGE
The Splinter Cell series has always been shameless American jingoism, but Conviction has its own unique messages. Some of this is due to this representing a transitional period for the property, and some of it is simply due to the rhetoric that was popular in games and media at the time.
A. For The EmperorEmpress!
In this game, all valid authority flows from the President and only the President. We know Grim is on the right because she’s working undercover for the President, we know her boss is bad because he’s politically stonewalling the President.
This is particularly striking due to a few creative choices in it. If you pay too much attention to what’s going on you know that despite being a girlboss, President Caldwell is a Republican president who, as part of their campaign, reached across the aisle to have a Democrat Vice President (the last time this happened it was literally the 2nd president of ‘Merica).
Would you be shocked at all if I told you that the plot involves this Democrat Vice President being entirely unlikable, and doing a cartoonishly evil turncoat who standards around telling them to keep him safe and hurry up and kill the President so he can have her job?
If you’re wondering if the game addresses why a supposedly amazing president picked a generally unpopular guy who is clearly ontologically evil, prone to villainous expositions and transparently mercenary to be her vice president… no, of course not. He comes across very much as a last minute thought to justify why you would go to all this effort to assassinate the president of ‘Merica.
So really, the core moral story about this is being the hero requires setting aside all your own trauma and needs to be a super-patriot specifically for a Republican President. It’s not a message that has really held up, over time.
B. PMCs And Torture Are Morally Neutral
One of the major antagonists in this is Black Arrow, a PMC which is run by a man who also owns a company that does research for DARPA but who also is apparently an employee working for people who run everything (expect ‘Merica), and is also entirely disposable to them. Guess this Republican president also scrapped all the jobs doing background checks without DOGE?.
The Black Arrow soldiers are all traitorous villains who have apparently no residual patriotism from their previous service, no family or connections in the area, and are happy to put their lives on the line in a plot which could result in them all being put on trial for treason. They’re cartoonishly evil.
Taken in isolation, this could be considered an understandable condemnation of PMCs, Blackwater had been outed as doing war crimes after all.2 Jeremy Scahill “The Nation: Blackwater: CIA Assassins?” (24 August 2009) NPR <www.npr.org>
But, Sam’s main support comes from his old war buddy Victor Coste (Vic) who runs a “security” company which somehow has a gunship helicopter (that is allowed to operate in ‘Merica) so is quite clearly also a PMC.
The gameplay also includes a weird, grindhouse type mechanic where in order to extract information from people you grab you torture them – well, it says interrogate and effectively what Sam does is just beat the fuck out of them in ways that would probably cause immediate acquired brain injury (moreso than is normal) – but effectively its good for Sam to torture bad guys in this game.3 Stephen Braun & Ken Dilanian “Torture can affect the brain, leaving long-term psychological scars” (23 December 2014) PBS News <www.pbs.org>
Which makes it, very strange when the owner of Black Arrow taunts you that your “enhanced interrogation” (the worryingly popular euphemism that Blackwater and their CIA handlers favour). Torture is somehow more integrated and yet criticized in Conviction than it is in your average Call of Duty game.4 Jacob Geller “Analyzing Every Torture Scene in Call of Duty — All 46 of Them” (22 June 2024) YouTube <www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPiL3-CYzWk>
Truly it is remarkable for a game that wants to be so political to decide that it just wants to decide its not going to take a firm stance on either of these topics.
C. ‘Merica is undefinable
As a non-American, I find it particularly hilarious when products from America just assume that fanatical devotion to the stars-and-stripes is a universal belief. This one is particularly heavy on it, with the opening statement ranting on about Sam leaving America behind (including apple pie), then taking every opportunity possible to zoom in on the flag.
(Also the only thing we are ever told about the enemy is they run things “in every other place that matters”, which seems to be a sort of weird statement at globalism but could also just be them trying to avoid committing to anything because it wasn’t in the budget or development pipeline).
It talks about how Sam as a patriot, shows you the flag, has you thwart an assassination attempt on the President that involves besieging the Whitehouse, but at no point does it talk about what ‘Merica means to Sam, the President, or anyone else in the story.
There’s not even a discussion about Sarah’s hopes and dreams, or what policies that The President won’t budge on (besides cutting spending on Third Echelon) that make this an issue of such great patriotism. The closest we get is, if you break stealth and invoke the action music in the Whitehouse you will find some of the music has speeches by former presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan mixed in.
Again, this game came out in 2012, so both these figures were outside the living memory of the majority of target demographic, and both of them were also dead. Nothing from the speeches really ties into the game, it is just used as a pastiche – much like the choice of location of the Whitehouse.
Much like PMCs and torture, the game has nothing to say about a topic it deliberately puts right in the centre. This seems to be a deliberate choice, specifically to maximize the marketing potential by letting the player decide what ‘Merica means without considering that they might support ideas like ICE.
D. Is This Feminism? (No.)
An interesting element of the game, particularly given the political environment of the day, is the majority of “positive” non-player characters are women.
Grim has been a permanent fixture of the series, but in this she isn’t just tech support – she’s the entire command centre operating on direct orders for the President.
The President is a woman who looks suspiciously like a more fit and conventionally attractive version of Hillary Clinton. Actually now I think about it, she’s kind of like if we blended Hillary Clinton and Anne Coulter visually.
Sam’s daughter, Sarah, is the driving motivator for the early plot, and depicts essentially everything good and right about ‘Merica that Sam is willing to fight and die for.
But don’t get too excited about it. Caldwell and Sarah are barely present except as nebulous concepts, getting only a few minutes of screen time. The rest is just assumed to matter because of the relationship they have to ‘Merica and Sam. The stealth tutorial takes place in a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) induced flashback from when Sarah was a child, but nothing about her life or relationship to Sam since then is relevant except as an excuse for his rage (ironically after she’s removed from the fridge).
Grim, for her part, gets done dirty, with all her characterization and history with Sam being used to make her just able to do whatever it is we need to happen for Sam to do the next thing. She gives him instructions, she shares information to facilitate his tantrums, there’s a really awkward section where she wants Sam to make her look she was attacked by him and he just slaps her around a bit.
She also is dressed inexplicably hot, with cartoony bouncy boobs… which is probably why Sam stops at giving her a bruised cheek and bloody nose (which instantly heal).
The female characters are present, but they are definitely not respected.
III. COMPARISONS TO EARLIER GAMES
Conviction was controversial at the time of its release, and became a regular showpiece during the discussions about how “games are not good anymore” in the late 2010s. This was, in part, due to it being such a high profile series but also because it did re-invent in a way that surprised many people.
Perhaps the biggest change, that I’m not going to bother going into – is Third Echelon is reinvented as a massive agency with dozens of agents in the same role that Sam previously held. Previous games implied that Sam was the only agent, because their standards were just that high.
It doesn’t matter much though, because Sam blows it up and kills everyone.
A. Faster PussycatSam, Kill, Kill
In a major break from the games before, the Splinter Cell games were known for (in single player) requiring patience and rewarding find ways to avoid lethal violence. The drama of the climatic showdown of Chaos Theory between Sam and his old friend hinged on the player understand Sam was a man who did not kill lightly.
Levels would be introduced with a mission requirement of no kills, etc. Sam generally did the patented “video game stealth” half-crouch walk everywhere. The ideal experience was one of flexing how you could outsmart the top terrorists of the world, without relying on indiscriminate killing like they did.
This was further accentuated by Sam moving and acting like a man past his prime, but still more than the equal of ever one of his opponents.
Watch any perfect playthrough of any previous game and you’ll see large parts of it, right from the beginning, involve simply waiting in one spot so that you can crouch-walk to your destination. Even in Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Double Agent (Double Agent) where Sam is expressly trying to go undercover with a terrorist group, he objects to lethal tactics and ideal play relies on non-lethal takedowns. The canonical Sam, up until Conviction, is a man who avoids killing where he can avoid it.
Conviction‘s tutorial orders Sam to gun down thugs in cold blood, and shows the “cover-to-cover” mechanics involving him doing dramatic slides. No longer did Sam do his sleepy slaps and use whistles to distract people, how he did neck breaks and point blank executions.
This was a very different game, and the ease with which Sam takes to the role made him feel like an entirely different character.
B. Fuck Democracy and “The Deep State”
Conviction‘s opening canonizes and draws attention to, but doesn’t expressly explain, that in Double Agent – Sam kills his former commander and best friend, Lambert. This again, seems to be to signal that this game will be different – no longer does Sam work for Third Echelon, and no longer do you get instructions via highly encrypted conference call.
In this new structure, there is no collection of interested parties with different areas of expertise – no discussions about working with different branches of the organs of ‘Merica. You receive your orders through Grim, acting as the President’s personal metatron and your guidance to salvation from PMC owner Victor Coste (who kinda looks like grizzled Jesus).
On top of this, the entire plot hinges on the idea that Lambert’s successor was completely corrupted before the events of Double Agent, and thus ‘Merica almost fell because of morally compromised, unelected agent being in control of his the agency (which mysteriously recruited dozens of mini-Sam Fishers despite him being a supposedly unique asset). Lambert, like the president, could not work out the obvious villain was a villain, despite his infinite resources.
“The Deep State” wasn’t really a term we used at the time, but the game essentially ties into it since it fills into that weird patriotism/nationalist idea that government employees who are not directly subservient to specific elected individuals are betrayers, schemers who undermine democracy by doing their jobs. Notably, conspiracy theorists usually target regular public service workers instead of the military and espionage institutions who were historically involved in conspiracies.5 Kathryn Olmstead & Simon Willmetts “State Secrecy Explains the Origins of the ‘Deep State’ Conspiracy Theory” (6 February 2024) Scientific American <www.scientificamerican.com>
Conviction proposes that these organizations go rogue when “betrayed” by funding cuts, and takes the stance that all those experts and red tape, those were just holding Sam back from being his most powerful – to the extent that he can apparently just easily murder his comparable agents a half-dozen at a time.
C. The Grimmest and Darkest of the Grimdark
From Chaos Theory onward, the series started to want to explore darker and darker territory – and I don’t think this was entirely its fault, they were just following the trends. Double Agent was a weird pivot into grimdark, killing off Sam’s old commanding officer and it did well – but it also, it didn’t have Grim.
Grim, like Sam, got pretty much a complete character re-write. Conviction is fundamentally a weird betrayal and sacrifice of the character to make not just Sam dark, but the world dark. She goes from being a idealistic, and somewhat naïve information systems specialist to an ice cold, ruthless and deceptive top tier intelligence operator purely because the story needs her to.
Then, because there needs to be a character who is Sam’s friend who can humanize him – they introduce Vic as this mysterious long time friend who knows all about Third Echelon (but isn’t involved) and has apparently been Sam’s confidant this whole time.
It’s really hard to overstate this, but they re-wrote Grim into basically a whole new character, then wrote a new character to fill the role that Grim would naturally have filled. It’s particularly strange since like, Sam has a daughter so there was a lot of interesting potential with Grim as a not-quite substitute for that role. Instead, we got a version that doesn’t fit the history.6 “Does anyone else miss the Grim-Sam relationship?” (16 May 2008) r/SplinterCell Reddit <www.reddit.com/r/Splintercell/>
Seriously, look what this has done to the appeal of the character:
Adding insult to injury, this version of Grim who talks to Sam like they’re equals in age and experience, who lecturers him about how the world and people are, and who somehow went from hacker to The President’s hall monitor is the one that continues in Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist (Blacklist) and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Deathwatch (Deathwatch).
Sam essentially has gone back to being his grizzled yet quintessentially moral self, but Grim has remained this weird Amanda Waller knock-off (and Coste has been forgotten about his entire character was just “Sam’s BFF”). No wonder there’s
D. There is only ‘Merica
While previous games were always very focus in ‘Merica, and everything of importance in the world is dependent upon ‘Merica – there are stakes and actors from the rest of the world.
The first level of Conviction takes place in Malta, but doesn’t actually involve Malta – it’s just chosen as the location. It could just has easily been downtown Los Angeles or Hazard, Nebraska and the plot and themes remain intact. Similarly the flashback level is just troops from ‘Merica vs Iraqis who could really be any foreign force.
Likewise, it’s mentioned that they’re smuggling in EMP technology but also the lab is in the US and no foreign state is involved. Given how the incident seems to go more or less unaddressed in Blacklist, it seems that literally nobody in the world noticed or cared that time that unnamed oligarchs almost overthrew ‘Merica via one of it’s own top secret agencies.
In Conviction, no other part of the world matters, or exists except for the purposes of being a stage for ‘Merica. Not Russia, not China, no nation that would probably be alerted and interested in such goings on.
E. Minimal kit
Sam has pretty much only 3 tools:
- Gun
- Bigger Gun
- Area of Effect Weapons
Lockpicking is effectively removed from Sam’s skillset, hacking occurs only by hitting “press button” and listening to a conversation with Grim or Vic. No noise projects, no directional EMP rays, no fingerprint scanners, nothing. Sam can’t even work out how to whistle any more.
The singular gadget along these lines is the remote cameras which can be used to look around corners, create distractions and as secondary remote mines. Instead Sam now used the environment to his advantage – usually by dropping things on heads or setting off convenient explosives.
Hilariously, despite the lack of fancy kits – the game also later introduces “chemical” lights (glowsticks) which cannot be disabled, somehow immune to bullets as well as EMP. This reaches peace comedy when at the Whitehouse you see the military vehicles Black Arrow arrived in and unloaded their computer controlled gun turrets from, fitted with dozens of glowsticks in lieu of high power lights.
This ultimately undermines things, as instead of having a super encrypted satellite communication system like in the previous game, Sam now has a brand-indistinct cell phone and wireless headset that is somehow impervious to EMPs and Third Echelon’s systems.
IV. CONVERSATION WITH OTHER WORKS
A. Hitman: Blood Money (2006)
In a lot of ways, they’re the same story: told in flashback, an agent of preternatural ability, directed by a duplicitous but loyal redheaded handler, takes on a secret agency with seemingly limitless resources and connections with the climax being the agent saves the president of ‘Merica from assassination, doing the vice president’s plans to take the spot.
This is not to imply any impropriety, just that the similarities are striking and that makes the choices of each fascinating. For example, Hitman: Blood Money (Blood Money), is oddly much more confident in its politics – making the whole thing about misinformation and monopolizing of science that can be used for political advantage.
I’m going to be a little cynical and point out that, as this was the first time either Philippe Debay (Narrative Designer), Mike Brooks or Richard E. Dansky (Writers) had written a game featuring Grim, it is a little suspicious that she acts more like Diana from Blood Money than herself. Unfortunately, I could not find any good confirmation on that, and since none of them work for Ubisoft anymore it seems it’d be rude to reach out.
Rather than go to far down the rabbit hole, I’m going to propose that Conviction would have been a very different game if Blood Money had not been released around the time Double Agent was finished and the remaining key staff told to start thinking up the next game’s rough narrative, set pieces, and themes.
Also, for context of the earlier assessment of Grim’s appeal:
Just saying.
B. The Sum of All Fears (2002)
The use of the EMPs to basically level Washington as part of a coup seems lifted almost entirely out if The Sum of All Fears (1991) by Tom Clancy , but with the aesthetics and sensibilities of the 2002 adaptation featuring beloved actor Morgan Freeman and also Ben Affleck is there as Jack Ryan.
Once again though, the movie at least had the confidence to make the antagonists have a specific goal and ideology – they want to destroy the progressive governments of Russia and ‘Merica to herald in a new era of fascism.
The imagery however, is unmistakable – the aftermath of the nuclear explosion with the mighty president of ‘Merica vulnerable,
Similarly, that story ends not with Jack really tying off any loose ends or following up, that task falls to John Clark (who just goes on a rampage in montage, extra-judicially murdering all the conspirators without any sort of direction or authority).
However in Conviction there’s no other nation involved, it’s just Americans killing Americans as part of good old American politics to decide who is the rightful, divine ruler of ‘Merica. They also just kind of, forget about the conspiracy after extra-judicially murder just 1 guy.
C. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas (2006)
At the same time that Double Agent had come out, another “Tom Clancy’s” property (this one he at least had some involvement in the early development of) had made the pivot from slow tactical game to streamlined action.
This had earned it substantial praise, and essentially marked the pivot from the games into being micromanagement nonsense for nerds to being solid shooters. It would be, absurd to say this didn’t influence the higher ups at Ubisoft who saw how the market was shifting.
D. The Bourne films & Casino Royale (2006)
It’s difficult to overstate the impact that The Bourne Identity (2002) had on action orientated spy movies from 2002 onward. The polished veneer of James Bond type action was so thoroughly smashed that even James Bond dropped it.
The impact of The Bourne Supremacy (2004) seems particularly prevalent in Conviction with Sam being both the former secret agent, but also the guy who can take apart his old agency with little more than his wits a few blocks of C4. Other spies are using satellites and super gadgets, he’s using: gun.
The reason I assume that Casino Royale was a major influence is that apparently Splinter Cell was originally kind of James Bond-like, but then Ubisoft acquired Red Storm Entertainment (founded by Tom Clancy) and wanted to get maximum mileage from “Tom Clancy’s…” That Bond was now a guy who’d beat people to death and do parkour chase scenes meant that Splinter Cell would have to lift it’s game.
Particularly since Bond got dirty now.
E. Man On Fire (2004)
Much like the Bourne films changed how hot spy-on-spy action appeared in media, Man On Fire changed how we showcased the inner thoughts and dramatic points for washed up men past their prime who’s singular skillset was doing dramatic violence.
Dramatic thoughts and instructions for Sam are projected on top of background and pop into life in the air as a kind of one-upping of the style used in the movie to varying degrees of legibility.
Also, they seem to have wanted to import the whole “super badass with nothing left to lose, out to avenge a girl” but it just doesn’t play quite the same given how little development we have of Sarah Fisher, and that she’s revealed to actually be alive at the end of the first act.
F. Bad Dudes Vs. DragonNinja (1988)
This one probably wasn’t a conscious influence, but come on. We all know Bad Dudes this has been the real driver for every story where you save the president.
V. IN RETROSPECT
While not quite as offensive as Call of Duty: Ghosts,7 Dan Olson “Call of Duty: Ghosts – Power, Paranoia and Orbital Tungsten Rods” (30 August 2025) Folding Ideas YouTube <www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKPM7cZORTE> or a Jarhead sequel,8 Dan Olson “This Is How You Get JARHEAD Sequels” (10 January 2026) Folding Ideas YouTube <www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5m-RHS1fU0> Conviction is another example of how a property loaded up with jingoism, a revolving door of staff and the pressure to put out another game that shakes up the industry quick smart can result in some interesting experiments and fundamentally horrifying messages.
The one-off PTSD flashback as a tutorial device which is never commented on again really doesn’t play well in an era where people with actual PTSD have been spending decades trying to educate people what it is, what it isn’t, and why content warnings are appreciated.
The much maligned gameplay is a distinct improvement on the previous games, that was facilitated by improvements in hardware and gaming but robbed older players of that sense of simply feeling smarter than others (often by knowing to wait on the spot for exactly 193 seconds before walking across a room)). The real problems are in the writing, the narrative and the need for convenience.
Grim didn’t turn into a cast-iron bitch overnight because of any malicious intent, she just does it because it was an easy way to implement a plot twist and have a fan-favourite still giving directions. She stays that way because it’s easier to just have her be a ruthless handler who still, somehow, puts up with Sam’s shit.
Vic was added almost certainly, because having one of Sam’s military buddies be the voice of humanity facilitated both a less stealth, more murder level and the appearance of compassion for the troops. Thank you for the service Vic, but fuck those guys in Black Arrow or anyone who would have failed to rescue Sam in Iraq.
Similarly the unquestionable faith in The President is convenient, the dream of the benevolent dictator who will be benevolent because of the wisdom of the voters. It’s a Republican president because they best fitted with Tom Clancy’s politics, and it makes it more surprising that it’s a woman (instead of an old white man who is also a rapist and a paedophile).
However, easy solutions are rarely suitable long term – for Splinter Cell and for reality. While Conviction might be an interesting artifact some point in the future, for now its essentially a horrific reminder of how we got to a place where there are people cheering for ICE agents and invasions into foreign nations strictly for the purposes of acquiring oil.
Maybe it’ll hit different in another fifteen years.
- 1“Splinter Cell: Conviction | Full Game | Stealth Walkthrough | Realistic Difficulty” (22 September 2020) TGP482 YouTube <www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV_JYI8wRfM>
- 2Jeremy Scahill “The Nation: Blackwater: CIA Assassins?” (24 August 2009) NPR <www.npr.org>
- 3Stephen Braun & Ken Dilanian “Torture can affect the brain, leaving long-term psychological scars” (23 December 2014) PBS News <www.pbs.org>
- 4Jacob Geller “Analyzing Every Torture Scene in Call of Duty — All 46 of Them” (22 June 2024) YouTube <www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPiL3-CYzWk>
- 5Kathryn Olmstead & Simon Willmetts “State Secrecy Explains the Origins of the ‘Deep State’ Conspiracy Theory” (6 February 2024) Scientific American <www.scientificamerican.com>
- 6“Does anyone else miss the Grim-Sam relationship?” (16 May 2008) r/SplinterCell Reddit <www.reddit.com/r/Splintercell/>
- 7Dan Olson “Call of Duty: Ghosts – Power, Paranoia and Orbital Tungsten Rods” (30 August 2025) Folding Ideas YouTube <www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKPM7cZORTE>
- 8Dan Olson “This Is How You Get JARHEAD Sequels” (10 January 2026) Folding Ideas YouTube <www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5m-RHS1fU0>