When the Splinter Cell series returns on 20 August with Splinter Cell: Blacklist, it brings the groundbreaking “spies versus mercenaries” mode back with it. The mode, first featured in 2006’s Splinter Cell: Double Agent, is an asymmetric multiplayer game. Two people play as spies – fast, agile, and with a wealth of gadgets enabling them to sneak their way through levels; the other two play as heavily armed mercenaries, slow and clumsy but making that up with firepower. Even the objectives were different for each team. The spies had to hack encrypted files from terminals scattered around the levels, while the mercenaries had to stop them.
“Spies v Mercs” was quietly revolutionary in its asymmetry, so I asked Jade Raymond, the Managing Director of Ubisoft’s Toronto Studios which produced Blacklist, whether there was anything as groundbreaking in the new game. “I certainly hope so,” she says. “The thing about our multiplayer is that we haven’t spoken about all of it yet, because we do want to save some surprises.” But in the new game, distinguishing multiplayer from single is harder said than done: “what we’ve done with Blacklist is blur the line between all the modes.” The metagame doesn’t distinguish between single- and multiplayer missions. Instead, it dishes out the same rewards for winning a multiplayer match, beating your friend’s score in a single-player mission, or for continuing the overall story. “No matter which mode you’re playing, you’re accumulating money which you can spend on Sam’s upgrades, on upgrading the plane, on upgrading your Spies v Mercs characters. It’s just a single experience and anything you do in any mode helps the global economy.”
It’s an interesting proposition, although slightly scary to someone like me who is, on a fundamental level, a bit crap at multiplayer games. But it doesn’t feel like the same breakthrough that the original was. Does Raymond still think the big console games are innovative? Might the excitement not be in mobile gaming, where whole new genres are being invented? Or even in board gaming?
Following a short digression where we swap stories of rolling dice – “I love board games!” – she defends her turf against the upstarts. “You’re seeing a lot of interesting stuff going on in the indie scene, but there’s certain types of innovation which can only happen with an HD level of realisation. Like, I think the Last of Us had a big impact in terms of storytelling, and emotional connection with the players, and you can’t really do that with a mobile game.”
But sometimes it can feel like that the ability to make that connection is wasted. Reading previews of Blacklist in the gaming press, lines like “visually, Splinter Cell still has some of the best shadows seen this generation” jump out. It’s uncomfortably reminiscent of Heavy Rain designer David Cage’s comment at the launch of the PlayStation 4, that the machine’s ability to render “30,000 polygons” let them “go further to create subtle emotions”. Raymond defends the preview, arguing that “in Splinter Cell, shadows do have a little bit more meaning than in any other game, because that dictates whether you’re hidden or not . . . I agree, talking about shadows is kind of pointless if there’s no gameplay mechanic associated with it.”
Raymond is upbeat about the state of the gaming press – even though it has frequently been less-than-reasonable back. Such as the time a Kotaku writer said: “I’m personally hoping she announces a new game where you just move the camera around a 3D model of her person for hours at a time”. Throughout her career, the community has not allowed her to forget her gender.
In the run-up to the launch of Assassin’s Creed, the first AAA title she produced, the abuse got particularly bad. Someone spread false rumours that she would be posing for Maxim; a popular webcomic artist drew her into a pornographic scene. “That was the first time that I really had that kind of thing happen. Obviously it was pretty . . . it was pretty difficult, to be honest, because even though . . . you can’t take that kind of thing personally, it has nothing to do with you, but obviously it does affect you.”
But unlike some women working in gaming, Raymond doesn’t think the industry as a whole has a problem. “Working in the game industry I’ve never felt that there was really sexism. I feel like I’ve been respected for what I bring to the table. I started out as a programmer, so, you know, you’re either a good programmer or you’re not a good programmer.”
Her analysis is more positive than that of many others in similar positions. Between critical studies like Anita Sarkeesian’s Tropes vs women project, which assessed the role of female characters in gaming, and movements like the #1reasonwhy campaign, which passionately detailed all the reasons why there are so few women in gaming, many women are speaking up.
I ask Raymond what she thinks about these movements. “Well, I definitely see a lot more people talking about it, so I think that that is probably healthy. I guess, you know, I would look forward to a time when it’s not a topic of discussion. ‘Oh, you make games, and you made this super-successful game . . . tell me what it’s like to be a woman.'”
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