Splinter Cell Conviction announced and detailed

Splinter Cell’s next installment will be subtitled Conviction and is scheduled to arrive on the Xbox 360 and PC in Q4 2007.

A few details of the game were rumored not so long ago, but contrary to their hints at the time, Ubisoft have announced more on the title before the their Ubidays event.

IGN reports that the game will be significantly different from its successor Double Agent.

“[Double Agent] was good, but repetitive over time,” said Mathieu Ferland, senior producer for the title, “After three games we decided to make a big turnaround in the franchise.”

Our protagonist Sam Fisher is to be put into that oh-so classic scenario of becoming the fugitive with the government he once worked for trying to track him down. He’ll have to make a whole new bunch of allies to get by, but apparently without his usual array of gadgets. On-the-ball tactics and sneaky use of the environment will take precedent over Fisher’s old reliance on night-vision goggles, laser-sighting, remote cameras and the like.

There’s still the massive theme of stealth of course, but techniques like losing yourself amongst crowds, causing distractions and using your environment will become skills players will need to familiarize themselves with.

“Improvisation is a concept we wanted to bring to the gamers, as we felt it was one of the strongest shared elements of all spy agents. They have to be able to deal with anything, anytime, anywhere – [but] faster, smarter,” Ferland explained.

Come back soon as we’ll be reporting a ton more in due course.