Watch Sam Fisher Stab Terrorists In This Splinter Cell: Blacklist Trailer

Never thought i'd see a game seriously hurt by the loss of a voice actor, but Michael Ironside's voice was one of the defining elements of the Sam Fisher character.
They should just have based it on someone else and started a new story if they couldn't get him back.

I'd imagine they're going to try a pull the whole James Bond thing where they pretend it's a code name and you can pass it off as a different character (since it looks like it's set in modern times and Sam was quite old in the last game), but I think that Sam was such a strong character that they should just change the name.

haha and I thought Conviction fucked the series. This just nails the coffin lid closed!

wow. What the hell indeed.

What the fuck happened to stealth.

I stopped caring about the series after Conviction; doesn't look like I'm missing much.

I'm gonna go against what's been said here and say that Conviction was a breath of fresh air for the series. Regardless, they're gonna lose out on a lot of they don't get Michael Ironside to voice Fisher. It's like losing David Hayter as the voice of Snake, it would never work regardless of how popular the character is. Ironside had a part in making Fisher iconic.

WTF! No Ironside no sale!

It seems that stealth has become a mere feature of a game. Something you choose to do rather than an intuitive and mandatory requirement. Although I've always seen Splinter Cell as a favoured series it is a shame that Ironside isn't part of it. It may never live up to to the name but if it is fun and engaging I'm all for it. It is just a game after all.

'Splintercell: Call of Batman: Conviction: Modern Warfare Operations...2'