7-Apr-2006 Ubisoft's producer on the Splinter Cell series spills on Sam Fisher's shadowy past, present and future He's the king of stealth and he'd easily have Solid Snake in a pub fight - at least, that's what Ubisoft's Mathieu Ferland, senior producer on Splinter Cell: Double Agent reckons of Sam Fisher.
With Double Agent promising a whole new take on the stealth genre - and indeed Fisher himself - the team at Ubisoft is busy putting the finishing touches to the game, set for release on PC, Xbox 360, Xbox, PS2 and GameCube this spring.
Despite the late nights and permanently creased brow, we recently caught up with Ferland to chat about Sam Fisher's shadowy past, Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima's digs at the series and what's in store for Splinter Cell come Double Agent's release.
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How did the Splinter Cell concept come about?
Mathieu Ferland: When Splinter Cell was being conceived, it was sort of a sci-fi game. We had a main character doing all these new and innovative moves, and using futuristic gadgets - it had some potential. It was a shooter with some interesting twists. I got involved with the concept when Ubisoft acquired the Tom Clancy brand from Red Storm. We reckoned it was a good opportunity to integrate the Tom Clancy universe into this game concept, so that's what we tried to accomplish. It turned out that as we adapted all these futuristic gadgets to Clancy's realistic universe - and then when you become a real spy instead of this guy from space - it suddenly made more sense.
Splinter Cell used shadows really well - was that planned from the start?
Mathieu Ferland: It was a big revelation with our technology when we developed the light and shadow system. Originally the game was more action-oriented, it was just a shooter, so when we implemented the light and shadow technology we knew we wanted it to be a stealth game. It was just a rough prototype, but we knew it would work at the time. That really focused us and gave us a common vision.
Did you draw inspiration from other games?
Mathieu Ferland: We drew inspiration from movies as well as other games. We were big Thief fans in the office, particularly of the visibility gauges. But when Metal Gear Solid 2 came out, we were in the middle of production and thought: 'Oh wow, that looks good, what are we going to do?'. At one point we wanted to create something similar to that, but then we decided against it. We're not here to follow what others are doing, we're here to do something different and hopefully something better than what others are doing.
What do you make of Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima and his light-hearted digs at the Splinter Cell games?
Mathieu Ferland: (Laughs) I have a lot of respect for Kojima. He has a brilliant ability to surprise his fans, like with Raiden in MGS2. I thought that was brilliant - having the guts to kill off your main character, even temporarily, that was great. People disliked it because they were attached to Snake, but now it turns out that they have two important characters that they can use and make fun of, like in the E3 trailer last year. When I saw that trailer, I thought it was really funny and very well done. We're flattered to be associated with Kojima's creation. We want to respond to that at some point, but we're just waiting for a good opportunity. (Laughs again, somewhat evilly.)
While we're on the subject, who'd win in a fight between Fisher and Snake?
Mathieu Ferland: (More laughter) That's funny. Umm, it depends on the context really. I mean, I think Fisher is well trained. They don't really live in the same worlds... I mean, Snake's in a jungle...
Well let's say they've had a few pints, and get in a bit of a scrap outside a pub...
Mathieu Ferland: In that case, Sam would win for sure, but they're not really from the same time or place so it's unfair to compare. They really are two very different characters in very different games. Sam's from the early 21st century though, so I guess he'd be better trained.
Sam's extreme acrobatics are complemented by some amazing animations - tell us a bit about that.
Mathieu Ferland: It's cool to see Sam's animation when you're sneaking around - there was no motion-capture involved either. We tried it, but when you want to express an emotion in animation it has to be exaggerated, it has to be theatrical. It's like seeing an actor on stage throwing his arms around with huge expressions to get a feeling across to the audience. You should try to walk like Sam does when he's crouched, it's humanly impossible. The feeling is there though and you feel the cautiousness, you feel that Sam is trying to be careful. Later on, with Chaos Theory, we introduced motion-capture for NPCs and other characters, but Sam himself has always been animated by hand.
Was it always planned to make Sam Fisher such a strong character?
Mathieu Ferland: One of our intentions was having a new hero and a new brand, and as the series progressed we began to wonder how Sam was perceived by the players. It turned out that people perceived him as a soldier, so this is why in Splinter Cell: Double Agent, we want to focus on Sam and make him more central to the experience, showing that he's not just a puppet of the Third Echelon. So he's going through some bad moments in his personal life, he's lost his daughter, he has nothing else to lose. We think he's really going to develop as a character in the latest game.
