At a few points in Chaos Theory, the issue of American imperialism is brought up by enemy soldiers. Do these story details represent an intentional commentary on current world politics?

Not really. I want the"enemy" soldiers in the game to express the things that they would likely express. Peruvian guerillas interested in extending "The Revolution" do (I think) perceive American foreign policy in South America and the developing world as being "Imperialist'. I'm not here to make statements about whether their beliefs are right or wrong. I paint my characters roughly equally as being politically motivated, or personally motivated, as being intelligent and informed or as being ignorant or foolish.

More important than the opinions of enemy soldiers is what Sam's attitude is in the game. Sam definitely has some reservations about the policy he has been tasked with enforcing. He definitely has some opinions about so-called American Imperialism. I would imagine a handful of people would take that as some kind of leftist Canadian whining on my part. They'd be wrong, though. What it is, is an attempt to illustrate a character in conflict with his own role in a complex situation. Just like the player who needs to make tough decisions about saving a life or taking a life, Sam also needs to be illustrated as a character who has to make tough decisions. Does Sam agree 100% with every element of American foreign policy? No. Is he willing to wrestle with those conflicts and struggle to make peace in himself and in the world. Yes. This is what makes him a hero. A hero without internal conflict is boring, and arguably not really a hero at all.

The Tom Clancy IP is known for simulation and realism, yet Splinter Cell is more stylized and "Hollywood" than some other Clancy properties (i.e. Rainbow Six.) However, it still features a somewhat realistic tone. As one of the major creative forces behind Chaos Theory, how did you deal with walking the fine line between entertainment and the "ripped from the headlines" ambiance one expects from the Clancy name?

I think Splinter Cell is only more "stylized" and "Hollywood" than other Clancy titles because it is focused on the characters and motivations of individuals. There is a coat of paint there that makes it seem all political and international, but really the game is focused dramatically on individuals. Rainbow (Six) and Ghost Recon are focused on teams or armies, and the character and personality and individual motivations of people are not as illustrated. When you deal with individuals, you have to frame everything dramatically. We keep some of the "technothriller" stuff with the gadgets and the high-tech weapons, and the realistic tactics, but this stuff is just mechanics. If you focus on that, you are very much a simulation, but if you scale down from the army level to the squad level to the individual level, things get more personal and more dramatically compelling.

As a writer, how did you deal with working with an IP developed by another writer? How much impact did Clancy's personal style have on your own writing?

Not much. Clancy himself didn't really develop the Splinter Cell franchise. The franchise was designed by us, here at Ubi Montreal to fit his global brand. I wasn't involved in the original conception of Splinter Cell 1, and admit that I've only ever read one of his books. Also, since his writing is prose, and the vast majority of our writing is "narrative in the form of play" and "dialogue", his personal style had no impact at all on my writing work. Sam writes his own dialogue in a sense, I just transcribe it. And the "non-dialogue" part of the story is "written" by the player.

What elements of the original Splinter Cell do you feel were most successful, and how did you approach the problem of expanding them in Chaos Theory without destroying the earlier balance? Conversely, what were the areas that you were dissatisfied with in the original and felt you needed to improve?

Splinter Cell was an amazingly immersive game. Watching first time players, and the sensations they got from controlling Sam, and the feelings of connectedness they had with the physical environment—that was something that was amazing in the original, and we had to be careful not to break it. We wanted to bring a lot more physics into the game, but the idea of seeing Sam put his hand on a doorknob and carefully open a door—the amazing feelings that gives were totally destroyed when he then walked into a crate looping his generic walking animation while the crate slid along on the floor, pushed by his collision cylinder as though he didn't even know it was there. It looked awful. We were really careful with all of the changes we made to the animations and we had to make sure that every new action we made available promoted or even increased those strong feelings of physical embodiment in the space.

As for what we didn't like—that's obvious… the linearity and the trial and error gameplay. We knew that had to go. The player has this amazingly rich possibility of expression in the lower levels of the game. The options he has in the low-level gameplay are very broad and meaningful. He can shoot lights, distract guards, pick locks, shoot people, knock guards out, hide bodies… the list goes on. But then at the high level, in the original, the player was entirely limited to going in a fixed direction and typically limited to performing specific actions in any given space. We wanted to bring the same freedom of expression up to a higher level in the gameplay, and let the player make more decisions about where to go, and about how to get to and through specific areas. This opened the space up to allow more expression from the player, and removed a lot of the frustrating trial and error.