Q&A with Mathieu Ferland, Producer Ubi Soft.

1.What is you goal with this new Clancy title? Aren’t there enough Clancy games with Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon franchises?
Mathieu Ferland (Producer Ubi Soft): “Splinter Cell represents an expansion of our Tom Clancy range. Unlike Rainbow Six or Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell is a Third Person stealth action game, where you have to complete your missions as a solo field operative.

The Clancy universe is appreciated because of intelligent, adult story lines and the realism in every detail. It represents more than only squad-based action and we feel this expansion is natural.

Our goal for the game is to push the stealth/action experience further (which is not an easy task). We are creating a console game from the ground up, that will plunge the players in a very interactive environment. We focused our efforts in linking amazing technology to the game-play. For instance, the real time lighting and shadows are awesome effects, but they are also crucial to the game-play (stealth) – and there are a lot of other examples of that kind.”

2.How is Clancy involved in the product?
Mathieu Ferland (Producer Ubi Soft): “Everything needs to be approved by Tom Clancy and his team: the story line, the characters, the visuals we use and even the game-play realism! It’s a lot of effort, but it makes the game more believable and detailed.”

3.What are the features you worked the most on?
Mathieu Ferland (Producer Ubi Soft): “We focused a great deal on the stealth movements, the light and shadow effects, and the sound design. We are still working hard on the game-play blending, which we consider to be priority number one for this game.

Other cool features will include the enemies’ A.I, a mix of pre-scripted elements and core A.I linked to sounds, lights breaking, movements... There will be outstanding visual effects too, for instance our soft-body physics system allows us to realistically recreate accurate physics of any soft-body objects. In the game we use this for ropes, plastic doors... It participates to the feeling of total immersion.”