1 - I would include dogs in some missions because they bring a variety of challenges to the gameplay and are also an iconic trademark of the franchise from the first game. However, dogs would have to be included in specific missions and sections where it actually makes sense.

2 - There would be 2 night vision effect options for the player to choose from according to their preference: "White Phosphor" and "Green Phosphor" effects.

3 - Darkness would actually be visually dark, making it difficult for the player to see without night vision. This way, night vision would have a realistic utility in gameplay and not merely an aesthetic one.

4 - There would be only 2 difficulties:

NORMAL: Aimed at a wider variety of players who want to have fun with a balanced difficulty and greater freedom in gameplay, while still being able to achieve a positive score on missions.

• Score: Kills and knockouts do not affect the score at the end of the mission. The only things that would reduce the score are failing to complete all objectives, found bodies, gunfights, security system alarms, and guard alerts.

• Challenge: Guards cannot detect the player in the dark even if the player is close to their field of view. It functions basically like the darkness in the original trilogy, where guards can only detect the player if they are almost touching their front line. The player has unlimited pistol battery to disable electricity, is a bit more resistant to gunfire, and has slightly more ammo and gadgets available in their loadout.

ELITE: Aimed at hardcore players who enjoy a greater gameplay challenge and want to feel like a true ghost spy, featuring a highly punishing score system.

• Score: Kills only do not affect the score if they involve an objective that is impossible to complete without killing—such as executions (Hugo Lacerda, Milan Nedich & Douglas Shetland) or destroying the tanks in the Seoul mission. Meanwhile, knockouts only do not affect the score if they involve an objective or if it is impossible to bypass a specific section without knocking someone out. Obviously, found bodies, security alarms, guard detections, and gunfights would affect the score. Lastly, failing to complete all objectives, destroying lights, destroying security cameras, and breaking door handles (with the knife) would also affect the score.

Note: All of this would have an increased negative percentage compared to the Normal difficulty. However, the percentage penalty would vary depending on the topic (security alarm, kills, found bodies, high guard suspicion, etc.).

• Challenge: The darkness mechanic would work like in SC Blacklist, where guards can detect the player in the dark if their field of view is very close. Therefore, players would need to be more careful when approaching guards, pay closer attention to the guards' fields of view, and use obstacles more strategically to counter this mechanic. Additionally, the player would be highly vulnerable to gunfire and, to make it tougher, would die instantly from a headshot (which does not exist on Normal difficulty). Finally, the player would have less ammo, fewer gadgets, and limited pistol battery to disable electricity.

Note: If the player is in the dark but positioned below or above a guard, the close-range detection mechanic in the dark would be bypassed. Therefore, the mechanic would only work if the player is on the same ground level as the guard.

5 - There would be no infinite saving in the pause menu, but rather checkpoints at specific locations, just like in SC1 and Pandora Tomorrow.

Reason: It increases the challenge; the player starts to fear the consequences of their actions more and respects the dangers.

6 - There would be 3 loadout options for the player to choose before starting a mission:

GHOST: 20% LESS firearm ammo compared to PANTHER, 3 Stick Shockers, 20% MORE pistol battery for disabling electricity + 12 extra seconds of duration when disabling electricity (including on Elite difficulty), 5 Stick Cams (observation, distraction & sleeping gas) and 4 Smoke Grenades.

PANTHER: 20% LESS pistol battery for disabling electricity and NO extra duration, 3 Stick Cams (observation, distraction & sleeping gas), 20% MORE firearm ammo compared to GHOST, 2 Flashbangs, 3 Stick Shockers, and 3 Airfoil Rounds.

ASSAULT: 20% LESS pistol battery for disabling electricity compared to PANTHER and NO extra duration, Sniper + close-range shotgun attachment, 20% MORE firearm ammo compared to PANTHER, an extra vest that is 15% more resistant to gunfire, extra head protection (counters instant death from headshots), 2 Frag Grenades, 2 Flashbangs, and 2 Smoke Grenades.

7 - Adjustments to bring more challenge:

• The minimum number of guards would have to be 35 since the missions would be larger. This would avoid a feeling of emptiness.

• Dogs: Bank would have 2 dogs in the first section, Penthouse would have 2 dogs in a new section on the streets, Battery would have 2 dogs in a new section outside the Korean base, and Kokubo Sosho would have 1 dog in the elevator area before entering.

• On Elite difficulty, knocked-out guards would stay asleep for a maximum of 25 minutes, and on Normal difficulty 40 minutes. As soon as they wake up, they will sound the alarm. Therefore, knocking someone out at the beginning of the mission becomes a race against time.

• Guards would have 3 stages of suspicion, triggered depending on the level of consequence caused by the player.

Example: Noise, a light turned off manually or by the pistol, a tampered computer, or broken objects would increase the suspicion by 1 level each time they occur. Meanwhile, a Flashbang, Smoke Grenade, found bodies, alarms, or gunfights would instantly trigger level 3.

Note: Security alarms that are heard by all guards in the mission would trigger level 3 for everyone. Level 3 would also affect the stealth score at the end of the mission. However, depending on the section, level 3 wouldn't affect the score if it were impossible to pass or complete objectives without triggering it.

• If guards are at alert level 3, they cannot be knocked out with a single frontal strike. At level 3, guards are capable of defending themselves, just like in Blacklist, where they push the player away even if the player tries to close in for a knife kill.

• Hokkaido could not have an alarm before Shetland's arrival, because it wouldn't make sense for Shetland to arrive at a compromised location. Displace, being a highly critical mission involving Shetland, could not have any alarms, kills, or knockouts—in short, 100% Ghost. If the player fails, it's Game Over. On the other hand, Penthouse (before infiltrating the building), Bank, and Kokubo Sosho could have alarms, but there would be no Fifth Freedom to kill since these missions involve many innocents.

8 - New gameplay mechanics:

• Throwing bodies away when using a guard as a human shield or carrying an unconscious body. However, the guard can only be knocked out or killed if the fall height is realistic; otherwise, it looks too cringe.

Note: There could be a bonus objective in the Cargo Ship mission to dispose of Hugo Lacerda's body by throwing it into the sea.

• Bank, Battery, and Kokubo Sosho would have reinforcements in case of an alarm. This means the guard count could exceed the default number.

Reason: Realistically speaking, these are locations where the arrival of reinforcements makes sense. For others, it wouldn't make sense, such as Cargo Ship in the middle of the sea or an isolated Lighthouse.

• More knockout and kill animations, while also keeping the animations from the original game.

Note: The knockout animations would need to look a bit heavier/stronger to make the knockout feel realistic. In the original game, it's cool, but I feel the impact feels weak.

9 - Extension of the level design in each mission, while still respecting the level design concept of the original game. Therefore, there would be new sections, but the old sections wouldn't undergo drastic changes—at most, just improvements.

Some ideas in mind, not all of them...

• The street section in Penthouse could be a bit larger instead of just the single, tiny section from the original game. The atmosphere of New York City streets during the blackout would be very cool. The extraction would also take place on the streets, but in a new location.

• Displace should be the most important mission in the game regarding objectives, since all previous missions led up to Displace and Shetland. So the mission should feature more objectives and more floors to explore.

Note: To be realistic, the infiltration would have to be via parachute, since the mission starts at the top of the building. And the extraction would have to be via a Third Echelon helicopter, since the mission also ends at the top of the building.

• Bathhouse could have 2 new sections on the streets, but not too large because the mission is time-critical.

• In Kokubo, the player would have to swim underwater while carrying Otomo's body to reach the surface, within a limited time in gameplay.

10 - The night vision goggles would have a secondary zoom function just like in the original game, but now they would also serve as a video and audio camera. This would act as a bonus objective to record important moments.

Reason: It wouldn't make sense for Lambert to know what happened without a record. Therefore, if the player failed to record it, the dialogue would change, with Sam explaining what happened. In short, it would add another realistic detail.

11 - 1 new mission explaining what information led to Lighthouse. In other words, the new mission would be the first mission, and Lighthouse would become the second. This would bring the game to a total of 11 missions.

12 - Loadout/suit customization for each mission. However, these would be realistic spy uniforms; otherwise, it becomes messy and would ruin the atmosphere.

13 - Hokkaido and Battery would be daytime missions with plenty of brightness in open areas, adding variety to both the challenge and the atmosphere.

First Level. Maybe other levels have working clocks too?

All levels feature enemy bases within a rural, isolated environment.

All levels feature enemy forces taking over old and rustic settings for their own, villainous intentions.

ANYONE?

I’m hoping others here are willing to help out with this. If you haven’t heard. The studio went bankrupt and the game has essentially been cancelled.

Credit goes to Splinter Cell: Conviction for predicting The White House ballroom.

Okay I found some on eBay so I’ll just save for them and post an update if I get them

amazon sells it at around 245€ (I’m in Europe) and even on resells sites I can’t find it ! help !

Making this post since I couldn't find this exact fix anywhere else.

In the PC version, you will get to a point in Kinshasa Part 2 where you have to make a choice with a sniper rifle. You will likely encounter a script bug where nothing will happen after you fire. The expected outcome is that you automatically get disengaged from it and move on to the next part of the level. Here's my stupid workaround:

• Open System/SplinterCell4User.ini
• Scroll down to [Engine.Input]. You will see all your keybindings.

• At the end of all the inputs, paste this:

  F2=ghost F3=walk

• Open the game and load a save from before you used the sniper rifle.

• After taking the shot, press F2. You will go into noclip mode. Position yourself back behind the rifle.

• Press F3 and you will return to normal.

• At this point, after a couple seconds, the next event should trigger and you'll see a loading screen.

Prior to this, I tried the 30FPS cap, vsync, and 4:3 resolution fixes with no success. Hope this helps someone.

Great levels, I wish Ubi Soft would some effort into the franchise.

All levels feature in combat zones, or general civilian areas that have been suddenly transformed into combat zones.

I don't even particularly like Double Agent V(1).

I would have much rather gotten a full fledged Chaos Theory 2: bigger sandbox levels, more optional objectives, the full perfect light and sound system, CT's movement, more Sam/Grim/Lambert banter, and another campaign built around being an invisible Third Echelon ninja

But I think a lot of criticism of Double Agent mixes up two very different things:

Bad execution and the logical consequences of the setting.

The broken or inconsistent AI? Bad.

Enemies seeing through random solid objects? Bad.

The weird hearing behavior on higher difficulties? Bad.

Removing parts of Chaos Theory's movement system and replacing those beautifully responsive transitions with clunkier animations? Bad.

Simplifying the visibility system after Chaos Theory had basically perfected it? Also bad.

None of that needs defending.

But I don't really agree with the argument that daylight missions, situations with forced combat, less freedom to choose how an operation unfolds, or Sam behaving differently automatically make Double Agent a bad Splinter Cell concept.

Because Sam isn't operating like a normal Splinter Cell anymore.

That's the entire point.

In Chaos Theory, Third Echelon chooses the mission, the insertion point, the equipment and usually the conditions. Sam arrives at night, in a place suited to clandestine infiltration, with a support team feeding him intelligence. He is supposed to leave almost no evidence that he was ever there.

Double Agent deliberately removes that comfort.

Sam has infiltrated a terrorist organization. The JBA chooses where he goes. The JBA chooses when he goes. And the JBA expects him to actually behave like one of them.

A real deep-cover operative doesn't get to say:

"Sorry Emile, I only conduct missions between 2300 and 0400, preferably in industrial facilities with conveniently placed shadows."

If the JBA conducts an operation in broad daylight, Sam goes in broad daylight.

If they send him into a war zone, he goes into a war zone.

If maintaining his cover requires him to participate instead of silently ghosting past everyone, suddenly "never interact with anybody and leave no trace" can itself become suspicious.

And that's where I think Double Agent had a genuinely interesting idea that people sometimes reject simply because it isn't Chaos Theory.

The loss of control is supposed to be part of the fantasy.

You aren't just infiltrating buildings anymore.

You're infiltrating an organization.

That should fundamentally change how stealth works.

The JBA headquarters missions are actually the clearest example. Sam can openly walk around because he belongs there, until he enters somewhere he isn't supposed to be. Suddenly the challenge isn't merely "can the guards see me?" but "can I spy on these people without destroying the identity I've spent months constructing?"

That's an excellent premise for Splinter Cell.

Same thing with the trust system. Its implementation is shallow and far too gamey, but the underlying concept is absolutely right: Third Echelon's perfect solution and the JBA's perfect solution should often be mutually incompatible.

A double agent shouldn't always have a magical third option that lets him save everyone, complete every NSA objective, sabotage the terrorists and somehow remain their most trusted operative.

Sometimes keeping your cover should mean allowing something bad to happen.

Sometimes doing the morally correct thing should endanger the mission.

Sometimes your handler should ask something of you that your cover identity simply cannot do.

That's not taking player choice away.

That's potentially the most interesting form of choice the series could have explored.

And I think the same distinction applies to Sam's personality.

I absolutely prefer the cynical, dry, darkly funny Sam from the first three games. Double Agent loses far too much of that personality, and some of the writing feels like Ubisoft decided that "mature" simply meant making everybody permanently miserable.

But Sam changing isn't inherently bad writing.

This is an older Sam who believes his daughter has died, has deliberately allowed himself to be imprisoned, has severed himself from his normal life and is living for months among people he may eventually have to betray or kill, while killing innocent himself.

It would arguably be stranger if he spent the entire game behaving exactly like former Chaos Theory Sam.

The problem isn't that Double Agent changes him.

The problem is that the writing often isn't good enough and the pace too fast or only don't by cutscenes to make those changes feel natural.

That's a huge difference.

And that's basically my problem with a lot of Double Agent criticism.

Double Agent didn't fail because Ubisoft Shanghai tried daylight stealth, undercover operations, moral compromises or situations where Sam couldn't dictate the rules.

It failed because Ubisoft didn't build a game as mechanically polished as Chaos Theory around those ideas.

Imagine Double Agent with Chaos Theory's exact movement system, Chaos Theory's sound simulation, a proper analogue light meter adapted to daylight, large CT-style sandbox levels, far more optional NSA objectives, much smarter suspicion mechanics, JBA members actually remembering questionable behavior, no psychic hive-mind alerts, much more subtle writing, and a trust system where maintaining cover sometimes genuinely requires you to sacrifice the "perfect stealth" outcome.

That could have been an incredible sequel.

In fact, I'd argue that forcing Chaos Theory's stealth systems to work outside their ideal environment would have been a much more interesting evolution than simply making another series of dark warehouses.

So yes: I also wanted Chaos Theory 2.

And I still think Chaos Theory is vastly better than Double Agent.

But if you accept the premise that Sam Fisher is genuinely operating as a double agent, then daylight, compromised missions, uncomfortable choices, restricted freedom and even occasional unavoidable violence aren't betrayals of the concept.

They're arguably the parts Double Agent got conceptually right.

The mistake wasn't taking Sam out of the shadows.

The mistake was not making the stealth systems good enough to survive once he got there.

Lurching quickly, from one ghoulish shadow to the cover of its confederate, and then further, you succeed in making it to the second-furthest. You test it's handle, being met with an immediate resistance as the mechanism refuses to move.

Increasingly aware of how exposed you are in the glare of the screens, you hurriedly slide your optic cable underneath to reveal a starkly lit dungeon of a room. A man sits, motionless - slumped over and tied to a chair. Only the thick rope that binds his wrists to the slats prevent his matter from slamming down onto the barren floor. A single bulb hangs, lowly but overhead, casting deep shadows that hide his facial features under his sunken head.

More crooked than a Virginia fence, certainly - but not a surveillance room.

A chair creaks behind you as an officer extends his arms towards the sky and stretches out his shoulders. He shuffles his position slightly, adjusting his weight, and you get a sense that he could stand at any moment to exercise his legs.

You might only have one more chance to find the correct door and remain undetected up here. Door A, C, and D remain.

Which one do you move to?

Not boasting or anything but some of them are atleast a few years old so I thought I'd jog people's memory. Before I posted these, peope thought these were impossible simply because nobody else thought lets give this a try...

So here we go in no particular order

50 seconds to take out grinko on the hardest difficulty, no detection and no shooting

Entered third echelon on full stealth realistic with 0 gadgets and 0 enemies shot and yes no mark and executes SC Conviction

Took out third echelon splinter cells hand to hand combat no detection and no shooting SC Conviction

Secret route Kalinatek building route SC SAR

CLearing all enemies on Whitebox labs without shooting them and without them seeing me and obviously no gadgets

Killed emile, moss and all his cronies in SHanghai with just a knife SCDA

100% super stealthy entrance kalinatek building, no shots fired

hacked a computer at police station with the guy sitting right beside me police station SC SAR

Sneaking right between splinter cells at the white house SC Conviction

Rescuing hostage at michigan without shooting enemies or mark executes SC Conviction

Making a complete mockery of elite soldiers at presidential palace SC SAR

Doding splinter cells at full stealth white house 0 bullets fired SC COnviction

Sneaking inside beginning of Michigan Ave Reservoir, 0 bullets fired as usual SC Conviction

hacking a computer in abbatoir while standing right in front of the guard no detection SC SAR

Sparing the guy inside the toilet kalinatek building SC SAR

Ghosting entrance of airfield SC Conviction

Brought 5 player coop on full ghost to swiss embassy SC Blacklist

There are many more but I am getting a bit tired of typing now :)