Rainbow Six: Siege is adding Sam Fisher from Splinter Cell as its next operator
The old man's still got it
Splinter Cell star Sam Fisher is coming out of retirement to be the next Rainbow Six: Siege playable character.
Ubisoft revealed Fisher's upcoming appearance as the operator known as "Zero" in a teaser trailer that opens with a close-up on what appears to be his iconic goggles. Turns out it's just some green LEDs on his gun, and he has a cool new jacket, but that's definitely Sam.
We even get to hear some voice lines that play up his gruff old soldier persona - "you should know better than to write me off" - though I'm pretty sure that isn't original Sam Fisher voice actor Michael Ironside. Ironside played Fisher when he had a cameo in a Ghost Recon: Wildlands update in 2018, though he didn't play the character in Splinter Cell: Blacklist in 2013.
Speaking of Blacklist, that's still the most recent standalone Splinter Cell game that Ubisoft has created. Since then, we've had a number of false starts and not-quite-teases about a Splinter Cell comeback. The most recent development was Sam Fisher's Italian voice actor confirming that a new Splinter Cell game was originally planned for 2020, but was delayed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Another Ubisoft Forward event is planned for September, so we could always find out more then.
Ubisoft plans to give Sam Fisher his proper Rainbow Six: Siege operator debut during the NA-Mini Major Finals on August 16, on the game's official Twitch account.
Sam Fisher will also appear in Tom Clancy's Elite Squad, a mobile RPG that lets you recruit agents from across Ubisoft's Clancyverse.
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I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.