Not too long ago Ubisoft officially announced Double Agent, the fourth installment of the immensely popular Splinter Cell series. The company promised a re-imaging of the franchise, with new gameplay elements and Sam Fisher acting as a double-agent. Sam even finds himself in jail! Of course, we had to know more. David had the opportunity to talk to Ubisoft producers Daniel Roy and Arnaud Carrette about the game, which is due out soon on PC, Xbox, Xbox 360, PS2 and GameCube.

Shack: In jail, Sam obviously won't have access to his night vision goggles, weaponry, or other gadgets. What game play mechanics were created for use in the prison stage, and perhaps others?

Daniel Roy: Removing the goggles from Sam in some missions was a big decision for us, but it turned out to be a very liberating one. In the case of the Jail level, removing the goggles means we have to step away from the 'traditional' Splinter Cell environment: darkness and silence. Instead, Sam has to rely a lot more on distractions to proceed. Good thing is, he has the mother of all distractions at his disposal, with a full riot breaking out across the jail. The use of environmental distractions is a game mechanic we have reused a couple of time throughout Double Agent, in drastically different ways.