In the late 90s and early 2000s, there was no video game that could wrestle the stealth action crown away from Metal Gear Solid. Hideo Kojima’s influential series created, and by 1998 seemingly perfected, the genre in a way others could only do so much to follow.
In 2002, however, Ubisoft Montreal’s Splinter Cell sought to add a fresh spin on the genre Metal Gear Solid popularized. This was a slower, methodical approach to stealth that saw its protagonist Sam Fisher skulking around in the dark and treading quietly deep behind enemy lines. The game lifted mechanics liberally from Looking Glass Studios’ Thief: The Dark Project (a less popular but equally influential stealth game for PC released the same year as Metal Gear), and wrapped it in the thrilling espionage of the Tom Clancy universe.
