I didn't know one was in development... back to roots... nice, but we'll see...

http://www.gamespot.com/news/new-splinter-cell-to-explore-root-themes-6367733

Sam has to break out of the retirement home? He's getting on a bit now!

"will retain the franchise's proclivity for action, but will also delve into a neglected series theme."


WHY?!
Why does Ubisoft insist on complicating things? Sam should just be a kick ass spy with cool gear working for a sn organization that "doesn't exist" and they work on Clancy-style intrigue stories in a stealthy fashion.
The only neglected theme is doing Splinter Cell the way it was meant to be done, like in the first 3 games. I enjoyed Conviction for what it was, but I'd much rather have another Chaos Theory type game.
Just re-release the original games with modern graphics and the Chaos Theory game play.

It needs to go back to stealth.

Chaos Theory was great. Double Agent took a step back in every direction. Conviction looks okay, but not as good as CT. Might pick it up at $2.50 or so sometime. I doubt this game will "go back to its routes" though.

Conviction is even further away than Double Agent was, but they still managed to make the gameplay fun. The story is cheesy, but the strength of it is the co-op and the Denied Ops single missions. Kind of like terrorist hunt, but a few ways to play it with stealth being more important than the story.
I think they would rather put out more "emotional" BS storylines than have to come up with good, well written Clancy-esque stories that people won't bother to keep up with.

Conviction was a very standard third-person shooter.

In my opinion conviction ruined everything about the Splinter Cell franchise.

I think that honor goes to Double Agent. The campaign, but also ruined MP with the monkey DNA movement.

I bought Conviction for only 2 reasons,


1. The Coop mode

2. It was on sale (I think I paid 10 bucks for it)

Having said that, the Coop mode was lots of fun.