In a nocturnal world of oily shadows, where darkness cuts into damp surfaces illuminated by solitary swinging lightbulbs, the green-goggled man is king. By the time the third entry in the Splinter Cell series, Chaos Theory, was released in 2005, we were already well acquainted with Sam Fisher's skill set; with just a year between this and his previous outing, we thought we knew what to expect, and expectations were high.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But in that short time between the two games, the industry straddled a technological revolution like Sam Fisher straddles a narrow corridor with his split-jump; unthinkable things became possible through untapped tech like normal mapping and HDR lighting, playing right into\u2014while also shaping\u2014Ubisoft's vision for Chaos Theory. This wouldn't just be the third iteration of an already excellent series, but one of the greatest stealth games of all time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After Pandora Tomorrow was made by Ubisoft Shanghai, development on the third game returned to where it all began\u2014Ubisoft Montreal. The focus at this time was on making games work on the original Xbox, and the presence of former Nvidia chip designer Danny Lepage as a programmer on the game meant the team had insider knowledge on how to maximise the console's graphical horsepower (and in turn not restrict the PC version).<\/p>\n
“Danny understood from a deep engineering perspective how the Xbox video card worked, unlocking some of the potential for shaders, normal maps, things like that,” says the game's lead designer Clint Hocking. “None of us had ever seen a normal map before. John Carmack was still writing forum posts trying to describe it. Then when we started to see that stuff we were like, 'Oh my God, this looks amazing!' It totally upended our understanding of what game visuals could be.”<\/p>\n
Controlled chaos\u00a0<\/h2>\n
Normal maps, which 'unflatten' textures by giving them the illusion of depth and distorted reflections from light sources, became a must for Chaos Theory. Meanwhile, the team's rendering framework\u2014facilitated by the power of DirectX 9\u2014was so powerful at rendering reflection effects that it set something of an elemental theme for the entire game: water. “The reflections were so unique that we felt they could become part of the game's identity, the same way that shadow casting was an identity of the original Splinter Cell,” producer Mathieu Ferland tells me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chaos Theory foregrounds its aquatic theme right from the start\u2014a lighthouse off the coast of Peru where a computer programmer is being held hostage. Weaving your way through a cave system glistening with moisture, you emerge into spitting weather conditions, at which point Sam's distinctive rubberised stealth suit takes on a glossy sheen (mercifully, not a factor in your visibility to enemies). During this mission, you can see enemies through the condensation-blurred glass at the top of the lighthouse, and go through damp tunnels where the walls glisten with humidity and look so coarse that you feel you could run your hands along their uneven surface and come away with moisture on your fingertips.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Set in the clammiest parts of New York, Japan, and areas around the South Pacific, Chaos Theory is a game obsessed with wetness, and takes every opportunity to show off the verisimilitude proffered by the tech of the time, and the studio's ability to implement them. Crucially, all these technical advancements were in service of the Splinter Cell stealth experience, which would also make some serious leaps in Chaos Theory.<\/p>\n