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'Elite Squad' pulls together a Tom Clancy dream team on mobile
Ghost Recon: Breakpoint wasn't the only Tom Clancy-related game Ubisoft showcased at its E3 event. It revealed the trailer for Tom Clancy's Elite Squad, a mobile RPG that pulls together characters from Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, The Division and Splinter Cell to form a spec-ops dream team.
Sam Fisher is confirmed for a 'Ghost Recon Wildlands' mission
If you were excited about the tease for military shooter Ghost Recon Wildlands getting a Splinter Cell crossover, you're in luck. The game's Twitter account just confirmed that Sam Fisher needs your help in a new add-on, "Special Operation 1 - Splinter Cell." The free mission will kick off the new season in the game, Year 2, on April 10th. It also leads into a weekend of free play on Ghost Recon, set for April 12th through the 15th.
'Ghost Recon Wildlands' is getting a 'Splinter Cell' crossover
Ubisoft's latest bid to keep Ghost Recon Wildlands in the spotlight: bring in one of the Tom Clancy universe's other stars. The developer has teased "The Call," a special mission that appears to bring in Splinter Cell's legendary protagonist, Sam Fisher (apparently voiced by original actor Michael Ironside). You'll get full details on April 9th, but there are already hints that the Ghosts and Fisher will team up to tackle a situation involving a leak at the CIA.
Steam runs out of 'Splinter Cell' game keys during a sale
Digital stores by their nature usually have unlimited inventory, right? Don't tell that to recent Splinter Cell: Blacklist buyers. Steam began a sale on Splinter Cell games on October 28th, and almost immediately ran out of Blacklist keys -- you just received a "failed to contact key server" error (or similar) when trying to play the stealth action title. Steam support and developer Ubisoft promised that keys would arrive on October 30th, but there were still reports of CD key issues as of that afternoon.
Grab Tom Clancy's best games for a $10 donation to charity
Tom Clancy is gone, but Ubisoft definitely hasn't forgotten the military-centric author or his legacy of branded video games. Neither have the folks at Humble Bundle, for that matter. Pledging at least $1 will get you Rainbow Six; Rainbow Six 3 Gold; Rainbow Six: Vegas; the original Ghost Recon; Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory on PC; and access to the Rainbow Six Siege multiplayer beta. Drop more than the average price (currently $7.99) and you'll pick up Rainbow Six Vegas 2, the first Splinter Cell and the one that changed things up considerably, Splinter Cell: Conviction. But wait, there's even more: A $10 donation adds the latest Sam Fisher adventure, Splinter Cell: Blacklist, and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier to the mix.
'Assassin's Creed' and 'Watch Dogs' lead Jade Raymond has left Ubisoft
The driving force behind some of Ubisoft's most successful franchises and best moments is no longer with the game maker as of today. Jade Raymond, executive producer on Assassin's Creed II, Watch Dogs and Splinter Cell: Blacklist, has left the company after ten years of service, the company announced. To do what, exactly? That's anyone's guess. She's been in the AAA space for a good portion of her career, working on The Sims Online prior to joining Ubisoft and being a key voice in the creation of the first two Assassin's Creeds. Given her experience running Ubisoft's Toronto studio, though, it might not be much of a stretch to imagine her going indie and assembling a quick and nimble team entirely of her own -- it wouldn't be the first time we've seen it happen.
Ubisoft founds motion picture division, vows to keep Jake Gyllenhaal working
Quick show of hands: how many of you like playing video games? And how many of you would like to watch movies based on video games you've played? No doubt slightly more sophisticated market research went into Ubisoft Motion Pictures, the game maker's unique approach to adapting games like Assassin's Creed and Splinter Cell for film and TV, meaning we'll finally see movies about assassins. Last year's Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time film grossed $335 million worldwide, surely thanks to Jake Gyllenhaal's smoldering yet boyish intensity, and the French game publisher clearly wants a bigger slice of Hollywood pie -- it also recently bought visual effects studio Hybride Technologies. You might as well get in line now for Battle Tag: The Movie.
Best Buy to slash prices for old Xbox 360 special edition bundles tomorrow? (Update: yes)
Let's face it: despite the new Xbox 360 being joyously quieter and more efficient, the previous model still manages to seduce some of us with its sexy curves. Speaking of which -- according to Joystiq's source, Best Buy's going to kick off August by lowering the prices for the Splinter Cell: Conviction and Final Fantasy XIII previous-gen Xbox 360 bundles. For just $299 -- $50 off the current price point (and $100 off the launch price) -- you still get a copy of the corresponding game title, a 250GB HDD, and two wireless controllers. So that's gaming sorted for the summer; now put that $50 towards some cooling aid and you're good to go. Update: and the new prices are live. Grab them while they're hot.
Splinter Cell Conviction still an Xbox exclusive
Despite a recent GAME typo that listed Splinter Cell Conviction for PlayStation 3, Ubisoft has already cashed Microsoft's blank check, er, reaffirmed its "deal" with Microsoft to keep the console version of the sneaky sequel bound exclusively to Xbox 360 – and besides, PS3 can't render Sam's new beard, right? "This is just a mistake by the retailer. The game is not coming out on PS3," an Ubisoft spokesperson told VideoGamer. The representative also dismissed GAME's suggested April 1 release date, stating, "We're sticking to the original announcement." Last we heard (and confirmed again today), the next Splinter Cell is scheduled for the company's coming fiscal year (April 2008–March 2009).
Haze delayed until 2008, brings Rainbow Six Vegas 2 with it
After last week's report of Haze being on track for a December release, we're now prompted to point out the rather abrupt appearance of a detour in-between the metaphorical train and its final stop at the PlayStation 3. It seems the designers at Free Radical didn't receive nearly enough coal to reach the lead platform in time for Christmas, and now hope that you'll conduct your purchase of their first-person shooter in the first quarter of 2008.Thankfully devoid of increasingly insufferable train puns, a Gamasutra article details the delay mentioned within Ubisoft's favorable first-half financial results. Sales for le publisher rose by 52% to $372.86 million, with profits jumping up 12% to $44.8 million. You might consider the money already spent on Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2, expected to arrive in the same quarter as Haze. Not much is known about the sequel, save that it'll (probably) feature soldier-types shooting up evil, one-armed bandits. Fellow Tom Clancy property, Splinter Cell: Conviction continues to be wishy-washy about a potential release date, as it's also been pushed back to Ubisoft's fiscal year 2008-2009.
Splinter Cell: Discounted Agent
We had kind of forgotten that Ubisoft was still releasing Splinter Cell games on the GameCube as of late last year. We hate to say it, but, unlike the PS2, which is in bajillions of homes and has yet to be supplanted by its successor, the GameCube is pretty much totally redundant. Add to that the lack of online play, which has become the feature of Splinter Cell games, and you've got a game that is kind of awkward to market and maybe even hard to sell.Imagine our surprise to find that this game was still retailing for $40, or that Amazon's one-day price of $23.99 is considered a "deal."If you're a huge Splinter Cell fan and you just have a Nintendo system ... you already have this. If, for some reason, you don't, you can buy it now, for less money than it usually costs. Oh, unless you want the Wii version of the same game for $20. But who would want that?
PS3 can handle complex AI, says Karraker
If you haven't been up to date on the "he said, she said" of the industry, a producer working on the newest Splinter Cell game came out and said the title (a 360 exclusive) could never be on the Wii or PS3. The former due to graphical limitations, the latter due to its inability to handle AI effectively. Sony's Dave Karraker begs to differ and issued this rebuttal: "PS3 can more than handle AI, as you will see with Heavenly Sword, which has hundreds of on-screen enemies with different AI routines at one time thanks to the power of CELL."We don't think the PS3 would have any trouble handling complicated AI processing or whatever technical jargon you want to toss in there. This is sort of interesting, since graphics were the last thing to get bashed on the PS3, but that topic seems to have silenced itself. Now we're moving on to AI? Eventually devs are just going to have to accept the possibility that, while architecturally different, the PS3 and 360 should be able to handle almost everything identically.
Worldwide PS3 releases for the week of August 6th
Here we go again. The next three issues of "Worldwide PS3 releases" are going to be depressingly bare, so you can probably stop reading right now. Wait until the end of the month, then we'll have far more releases happening on a weekly basis. Possibly even, more than one. Fingers crossed. US Games Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent EU Games No new releases Asian Games No new releases No comment.*Update*Okay, so the confusion about Splinter Cell comes from the fact that some places like Amazon.com are listing it in 'preorder' status right now, with a ship date of tomorrow. We have no idea why it would be like this, considering it was released worldwide on March 30th of this year. Ubisoft may have cut off shipments and be rereleasing it due to some unknown bug in the original version. If we can get an answer out of Ubisoft on this weirdness, we'll let you know.
Splinter Cell fans have urge to buy 300
If you've been sneaking around in Splinter Cell: Double Agent multiplayer lately, you may have had a strange desire to purchase 300 on DVD (and Hi-Def!). X3F reader NitroFrost sent us the image above, in which you can behold the power of in-game advertising. The new ads apparently seemed to arrive at about the same time as the recently released downloadable content. As usual, seeing an ad like this makes us wonder how players actually feel about them. Frankly, it's hard for us to argue with 300's awesomeness (in the true sense of the word), but we're not sure that it adds to the experience. What say you, fanboys? Do ads ruin the experience? Does it depend on the product being advertised? What if it were Doritos or Sprite, for example)? Let your voice be heard in the comments below.
Double the fun with free Double Agent DLC
Today, Splinter Cell: Double Agent came down with a case of free downloadable content syndrome and as everyone knows, the only cure for such sickness is for you to give it a download. The free downloadable content includes two new multiplayer maps (Kinshasa and Secret Base), four new challenges, and a new Spy Girl character with three different outfits. And did we mention these goodies are free?Hopefully this new Double Agent content will satisfy Splinter Cell fans' appetite until the recently delayed Conviction releases in 2008. It'll be a long wait, but you'll survive.
Splinter Cell Conviction delayed til 2008
Firing Squad reports that Splinter Cell Conviction is no longer planned as a 2007 release. The revelation comes courtesy of an Ubisoft financial report which lists the game as a 1st quarter 2008 release. Last month, an Ubisoft release list had Conviction set as a November 2007 title. While no specific reason is given for the delay, we would imagine it has something to do with the absolutely packed holiday lineup. This lineup even contains several of Ubisoft's own titles, including newcomers Assassin's Creed and Haze. Both of these titles are also slated for a November release. Putting a proven franchise like Splinter Cell in the same month as two original IPs probably wasn't the best idea in the first place, so the delay makes sense. Sure, we'll miss Splinter Cell, but frankly, our wallets sigh with relief.[Via Joystiq. Thanks, Captain]
Ubisoft dates Haze, Splinter Cell, Raving Rabbids 2, more [update]
Ubisoft has revealed the release dates for all of its major 2007 titles, asking the majority of them to form a neat line in November and proceed to remove the contents of your wallet one by one. You're more than welcome to make a fuss about it, but having the sneaky men of Assassin's Creed and Splinter Cell: Conviction within grasp of your neck renders such action unwise. A more notable entry in the release schedule (as posted by Eurogamer) is Free Radical's sci-political first-person shooter, Haze, previously described as "leading on PS3" in a display of timed exclusivity: Haze (PS3) -- 23 November Oh, you'll be wanting the release date for the other platforms as well: Haze (Xbox 360, PC) -- 30 November [Update: Oh dear, Ubisoft has removed the Xbox 360 and PC versions of Haze from the current release list. We're waiting to hear back from Ubisoft on the matter.] Other key titles dated after the break include Assassin's Creed, Dark Messiah: Elements, Rayman Raving Rabbids 2, Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway, and Splinter Cell: Conviction.
Ubisoft dates its winter titles
It's been said by many people for months now: 2007 looks to be a big year for gamers. It seems like every company is pulling out all the stops and quality games are getting ready to rain from the heavens. Some say that 2007 may be the best year EVAR. True or not, Ubisoft is playing a large role in the 360's holiday season. As proof of that, Eurogamer has unveiled Ubisoft's official release list for this holiday season, including planned release dates for major titles like Assassin's Creed and Splinter Cell Conviction. Check out the list after the break.
Splinter Cell trailer sneaks onto XBLM
In addition to this morning's surprise Project Sylpheed demo, there is also a trailer for Splinter Cell Conviction. The trailer is the same one released at the Ubidays 07 event last month, so there isn't anything new for Splinter Cell fans to see. Also, the video quality is somewhat suspect, despite the video's label of "HD." Still, it's Splinter Cell Conviction on a larger screen, so we'll take what we can get (of course, we wouldn't mind if Ubisoft wanted to release a cleaner version in the future).If Splinter Cell doesn't float your boat, you can also sink your teeth into a trailer for the Xbox 360 version of Rayman: Raving Rabbids. We watched it, and all we can say is DAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!
Vampire Rain downpours July 3rd
Well, if you're a little pissy about not getting the demo in your area, at least you won't have to wait long for the retail to be released. Microsoft just sent out a release stating that Vampire Rain will be shipping July 3rd for $59.99. Not only that, but a Fan Site Kit can be downloaded at the www.vampirerain.com. So, does the idea of merging Buffy the Vampire Slayer with Sam Fisher from the Splinter Cell series interest you, or does it run a little dry?
