14 DAY TRIAL // Ubisoft has revealed more details about its decision to drop veteran actor Michael Ironside as the voice of hero Sam Fisher in Splinter Cell: Blacklist.
The company has confirmed that it needed a multi-talented individual who could take part in the voice acting, facial animation, and motion capture processes.
Splinter Cell: Blacklist was revealed last year and, almost immediately, fans complained about the fact that Sam Fisher's trademark voice actor, Michael Ironside, wouldn't be making a comeback.
According to the game's Creative Director, Maxime Beland, who talked with IGN, Ubisoft needed an actor who could provide the voice for Sam Fisher, but also animate his face and do the motion capture process, all at the same time.
"On Blacklist we knew that we wanted to raise the bar of our scripted events, of our cinematics, and to do that we knew we had to go to performance capture," he said. "The difference between motion capture and performance capture is that with performance capture, you’re capturing everything at the same time."
As such, in order to raise the game's level of quality, Ubisoft decided to hire Eric Johnson to bring Sam Fisher to life.