Sam Fisher has made his return, though sadly it’s not as the star of a new Splinter Cell game. His role in Ghost Recon Wildlands’ new special operation is a solid alternative, but there’s no denying the dedicated stealth genre has seen better days. That’s a fact Fisher himself laments in his Wildlands guest appearance, making reference to the other great hero in videogame stealth.
You and Sam can both console yourselves with the best stealth games on PC.
In a cutscene setting up the Wildlands mission, Fishers says “I’ve heard they don’t make them like me anymore. There was this other guy, though. Army Infiltration. He wore a bandana or something.”
His handler replies “I heard he finally retired.”
“Really? Then it’s only me.”
Michael Ironside delivers the line with such an authentic sense of lament that you’d think Sam is on the verge of breakdown. The guy with the bandana, of course, can refer to none other than Solid Snake – or Big Boss, I guess – who’s no longer even a featured player in his own series.
You can also take this as confirmation that Splinter Cell, Metal Gear, Ghost Recon, and by extension Predator (then even Alien) all exist in the same universe. Sam Fisher just broke gaming’s six degrees of separation wide open.