'Splinter Cell: Blacklist' gameplay footage shows Sam Fisher killing in style

Splinter Cell: Blacklist features a Sam Fisher at the peak of his career — he answers to no one but the President — but he can still be humbled by a terrorist, according to a lengthy gameplay video released by Ubisoft.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist features a Sam Fisher at the peak of his career — he answers to no one but the President — but he can still be humbled by a terrorist, according to a lengthy gameplay video released by Ubisoft.

The video, embedded below, includes much of the same footage that comprised the live demo of Blacklist shown during Microsoft's E3 press briefing. This time, creative director Maxime Beland narrates the proceedings, and no, you can't turn the captions off.

Blacklist is a direct sequel to 2010's Splinter Cell: Conviction, which rebooted the franchise's gameplay with quick, stylish sequences of kills made possible by a simple "mark and execute" system. Ubisoft Toronto is expanding on that mechanic to make it more fluid and kinetic — watch how Fisher selects targets, then dashes into a clearing to take out enemies on the run. While this game takes place after the events of Conviction, the iconic, gravelly voice of Michael Ironside is gone. The developers used performance capture for Blacklist, and Ironside, who's over 60, wasn't up to the task.

In the video, Fisher and his Fourth Echelon team raid a Middle Eastern compound, looking for a man named Jadid. It turns out that he's an MI6 agent gone rogue, but before Fisher can capture him, he kills himself — leaving Fisher and Fourth Echelon in a mess of trouble. Maybe his new platforming skills, like scampering up a cliff, will be of assistance in making his escape.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist is due out next spring on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.