10 Video Game Reveal Trailers Better Than The Final Release

The first look at Splinter Cell: Conviction put forward a vision for the franchise that was nothing like the game players eventually got.

Emphasising Sam Fisher's one-the-run plight and his improvised fighting style, the new version of Splinter Cell looked to shake up the franchise's core sneaking formula by turning the main character into a Jason Bourne-type figure.

Unlike the other releases, Conviction focussed on stripping players of the high-tech gear they were used to, instead encouraging them to hide in plain sight and use whatever they could get their hands on as weapons. There was a larger emphasis on brawling than ever before, with players encouraged to use the environment to their advantage to quickly eliminate enemies and slink away into a crowd.

The eventual release retained some of these features, but for the most part threw away the improvised approach to fighting in favour of the classic set of gadgets and skills players were used to.

Opting instead for a compromise between the old games and the original vision for Conviction, the title felt like a half-measure for not executing on the ambitious ideas presented in the first trailer.