Splinter Cell: Conviction introduces a number of new gameplay features to the series, one of which is the "Mark and Execute" feature, which allows the player to mark specific targets, such as enemies or objects, and shoot them when they burst through a door or window. The player can choose to prioritize these targets, so that, for example, he could distract one guard by shooting out a light in his vicinity and then take out another guard. Another new feature is the "Last Known Position", which occurs when the player breaks the line of sight of an alerted guard. This creates a visual silhouette of where the guard thinks Sam is, allowing the player to strategically flank his enemies. Main target subjects can use the player's abilities against them. The player can be taken hostage by the subject in co-op mode; the hostage's partner can neutralize the subject by shooting them or grabbing them off his teammate.
Other new features include the ability to interrogate characters in real-time and use objects in the surrounding environment against them. Several other features, such as blending into crowds, improvising gadgets, and interaction with the environment, were announced, which according to creative director Maxime Beland would have given the game "a lot of Bourne Identity influence", but were scrapped after the development team decided that going in this direction would be taking too much of a risk. The environment is also used to project mission objectives and key plot points onto walls in order to keep the player immersed in the gameplay during the narrative.
One of Ubisoft's stated goals for Conviction was to make the game more accessible. According to Beland, Chaos Theory is "very hardcore", which turned off many players and disillusioned people from the fantasy of being Sam Fisher. Beland contrasted the earlier games in the series with works containing James Bond or Jason Bourne, who "run fast, they don’t make noise, they kill one, two, three or four guys super quickly" and stated that Conviction delivers a similarly dynamic experience with a emphasis on action.
Multiplayer
Multiplayer mode in Splinter Cell: Conviction involves split screen, system link (Xbox 360) and online cooperative mode, plus a Deniable Ops mode. Deniable Ops mode involves 4 multiplayer modes that pit the players against AI in game modes such as Hunter, Infiltration, Last Stand, and Face-Off. These modes are also singleplayer and do not always have to be played against a human opponent.
According to co-op game director Patrick Redding, the stealth in Splinter Cell: Conviction is designed around the new core elements like "Mark and Execute" and "Last Known Position" that have been shown since E3 2009.
Prologue
Ten days prior to the apprehension of Sam Fisher, Third Echelon Agent Archer and Voron agent Kestrel are deployed to Nevsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg,Russia to halt rogue elements of the Russian military from selling advanced warheads on the black market. Intelligence from Andriy Kobin has pointed Archer and Kestrel to drug and human trafficker Valentin Lesvosky as the broker for the sale. Archer and Kestrel are to terminate Lesvosky and his associate, Boris Sychev, as well as gaining Lesvosky's contact list.
Archer and Kestrel are later deployed to the Russian embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan to gather intelligence on an arms deal conducted by former Russian GRU colonel Leonid Bhykov. Archer and Kestrel observe the arms deal and learn that Bhykov betrays Tagizade and orders his men to kill Tagizade. Archer and Kestrel prevent the destruction of the weapons crates, learning that the weapons Bhykov was going to sell were Block II JDAM missile guidance kits. Archer and Kestrel make their way to the banquet area to interrogate Bhykov. Archer and Kestrel learn that Bhykov was working with Major General Kerzakov, and that Kerzakov was in the Yastreb Complex, an underground fortress situated underneath Moscow's Red Square.
Archer and Kestrel infiltrate the complex to avert the sale of the JDAM kits to the Iranians and learn the location of the EMPs. They render the JDAM kits inoperable by using their portable EMP devices, and download data from multiple servers to trace the EMP devices to the Mozdok Proving Grounds, killing Kerzakov in the process.
Sneaking aboard a supply truck, Archer and Kestrel infiltrate the Mozdok Proving Grounds in North Ossetia. They manage to secure the EMP devices with the help of Kobin. However, during the middle of extraction via transport plane, Tom Reed contacts Archer on his earpiece and orders him to kill Kestrel. Kestrel however learns of the order from reading Archer's OPSAT device, forcing him to act in self-defense. Archer or Kestrel manage to kill one another, only for the guilt-ridden survivor to be executed by Kobin.
Single Player
Taking place three years after Sarah Fisher's death, former Navy SEAL Victor Coste is held in a Black Arrow facility interrogation room as he is interviewed by an unidentified group of men. Victor begins to recount the events of Splinter Cell: Conviction in the past tense. This continues throughout the game, with each level being narrated in the past tense as the player "experiences" what happened.
After having disappeared, Sam Fisher is remotely located and contacted by former Third Echelon colleague Anna "Grim" Grímsdóttir in a marketplace situated in Valetta, Malta. He is warned that a group of hitmen have located him. Sam dispatches them and interrogates the leader, Dimitri Gramkos, learning that drug runner Andriy Kobin was responsible for the death of his daughter, Sarah. Sam learns that Kobin is present in his mansion, a re-purposed museum. Upon infiltrating the mansion, Sam interrogates Kobin and learns that the situation was "bigger than his daughter," prior to being captured by Third Echelon agents.
Sam is relocated to Price Airfield in Virginia, where he is to be interrogated by Grim with support from a PMC called Black Arrow. When they are all alone, Grim kills a guard and reveals that she is working with President Patricia Caldwell as a mole inside Third Echelon, and that she needs his help with investigating Third Echelon's director Tom Reed's relationship with the PMC. A reluctant Sam refuses to help her, but relents after being told that Sarah is alive, and that she would prove it to him during the course of the investigation. Grim facilitates Sam's escape from the airfield by providing him weapons and access to her car. At this point, Sam calls in his former squadmate for assistance in the investigation, in part of Victor having rescued him during the events of Operation Desert Storm. Sam meets with Victor at a county fair in the Washington Monument in Washington D.C., receives some equipment, and learns that White Box Technologies, a R&D (research and development) company specializing in EMPs, hired Black Arrow for corporate security, which is considered to be out of character as Black Arrow does not normally provide such services.
Sam heads to White Box Technologies and witnesses multiple scientists being murdered by Black Arrow operatives. Fisher saves one of the scientists and learns that Lucius Galliard hired Black Arrow to provide security, and that a Black Arrow officer known as Robertson has been collecting and disposing of experimental data with EMP countermeasures. On the way to Robertson's office, Sam gets a short phone call, facillated by Grim, from Sarah, revealing that she is still alive. Sam then reaches Robertson's office and downloads the data for Grim's analysts to study. He later triggers an EMP to prevent Black Arrow's tracing of the download in order to maintain Grim's cover, which also kills Robertson.
Sam is later directed to the Lincoln Memorial under orders from both President Patricia Caldwell and Grim, in order to infiltrate the area record a conversation between Reed and Galliard. Sam then interrogates Galliard, who reveals that the operation was funded and organised by an unknown group known as 'Megiddo', with Tom Reed being just 'hired help'. Before he can reveal anymore, Galliard is shot by an unknown gunman. Sam pursues the gunman, only for the gunman to get killed by a car bomb. Sam is immediately drawn into a confrontation with Third Echelon agents until he is extracted by the Secret Service.
Later, Sam infiltrates the Third Echelon headquarters to recover equipment from a Third Echelon employee named Fryman) and retrieve information from Reed's office. Instead of finding Reed, Sam re-encounters Kobin and interrogates him again. Sam learns that Reed was working with Megiddo to smuggle EMP technology into the United States, and activate the technology as cover to assassinate Caldwell and have the Vice President take over the position since he was "in Megiddo's pocket." As a result of facilitating the assassination, Reed would then be promoted within the higher ranks of the government and be considered a hero. Kobin later reveals that he never knew anything about Sarah and only provided a false body to stage her death, urging him to ask Grim as she knew the whole story. Sam confronts Grim (via video communication) with the information he learned, and is urged to listen to an audio recording of former Director Irving Lambert made shortly before his capture in New York three years before. Sam learns that Lambert had found out that there was a mole in Third Echelon who planned to use Sarah as leverage against Sam and therefore, compromise him. In order to protect both of them, he staged Sarah's death as a car accident and secured a similar looking body from Kobin, in order to take her 'off the playing field' and allow Sam to to do his job. Despite this, Lambert concludes that he wasn't able to locate the mole, and that his efforts may have been in vain.
Grim later tells an enraged Sam to stop one of three EMP attacks at the Michigan Avenue Resevoir, stating that Sarah's apartment is within EMP's effective radius; while Victor recovers Sarah. Meanwhile, Grim would accompany Reed to the White House in order to halt the assassination attempt. Sam then escapes Third Echelon when Reed activates the self destruct protocol, destroying the building. He then gets to the EMP site, and destroys it with the help of Coste and his helicopter. Sam is then extracted by Victor and has a brief reunion with Sarah before the two remaining EMP's are activated, destroying most electronic devices in the city and causing general chaos. After the attack, the helicopter is shot down by a surface-to-air missile. While Coste takes Sarah to safety, Sam journeys through downtown D.C., and infiltrates the White House, confronting Black Arrow, Splinter Cells and Third Echelon assault troops in the process. After 'securing' the corrupt Vice President, Sam regroups with Grim, who shoots Sam in the shoulder so that he can get close to Reed, appearing to be a hostage.
Upon entering the Oval Office, Reed prepares to execute Sam and the president. It is revealed that Caldwell was going to shut down Third Echelon and leave America vulnerable without its intelligence services, telling Sam that the president believed that all the sacrifices Sam and agents like him made weren't necessary anymore. To prevent this, Reed planned to frame Sam for assassinating the president, as supposed proof to the country that Third Echelon was still needed. As Reed gets close to Sam, Sam disarms Reed and he and Grim kill Reed's Third Echelon escorts. Sam interrogates Reed while U.S. Army soldiers extract Caldwell. It is then revealed that Reed was the mole Lambert was looking for; and depending on the players choice, Sam or Grim execute Reed. If Grim executes Reed, Grim confides in Sam that he is the only person that she can trust, but Sam says that he no longer wants to be a part of this and leaves.
The story then returns to the present tense, with the interrogation of Victor Coste concluding. Victor states that Sams last conversation with him revolved around the importance of "always having to come back for" family, and how Sam finished that same conversation by saying he loves Vic "like a brother." As Victor finishes his statement, an explosion places the facility on alert, implying that Sam is assaulting the base.
