Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist was released in 2013 from Ubisoft Toronto and became, for the time being, the final entry in the stealth action series about agent Sam Fisher. In it, Fisher commands the newly formed Fourth Echelon unit and faces the terrorist organization The Engineers, which launched a series of attacks codenamed Blacklist targeting American interests worldwide - from military bases to civilian infrastructure.

The game returns to the series' roots of quiet, deliberate tactics, while also offering the player a choice between three clearly distinguished approaches to missions - a silent, untraceable playthrough, brutal direct confrontation, or a hybrid style combining both depending on the situation. A new home base, the transport aircraft Paladin, serves as a hub for upgrading equipment, buying new gadgets, and selecting further missions, giving the game a structure close to light RPG elements and motivating players to return even to previously completed sections for a better rating.

Besides the main campaign, Blacklist also offers standalone cooperative missions tailored for two players and the asymmetric multiplayer mode Spies vs. Mercs, in which lightly equipped spies moving in the shadows clash with heavily armored mercenaries with a completely different set of abilities and camera perspective. Critics at launch particularly praised the return to carefully designed stealth gameplay, the wide range of options for solving individual sections, and the solid technical execution on the consoles of the time.

Why play it: For thoughtful stealth design with a genuine choice between quiet approach and direct action.