Difficulty (2024)

A difficulty is a video game setting that determines the amount of challenge and balance of the game as a whole. Typically, difficulty levels will range from easier difficulty settings to increasingly harder settings that will ultimately affect how much of a challenge the game will give to the player during the course of the game.

In the Splinter Cell series[]

In each of the games, difficulty titles and the different types vary between different games.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell[]

• Normal — The regular difficulty where damage, health, enemy health, etc. are balanced.
• Hard — An increasingly difficult challenge: damage taken is increased, medical kits refill less health and enemy health is increased (even enough to survive frag grenades).

Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow[]

• Normal — The regular difficulty where damage, health, enemy health, etc. are balanced.
• Hard — An increasingly difficult challenge: damage taken is increased, medical kits refill less health, alarm levels do not decrease and enemy health is increased.

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory[]

• Normal — The regular difficulty where damage, health, enemy health, awareness (sight & sound) etc. are balanced.
• Hard — An increasingly difficult challenge: damage taken is further increased.
• Expert — Extremely difficult: damage taken is severe & hacking is more difficult.

Splinter Cell: Double Agent (Version 1)[]

• Easy — More ammo bullets, enemys can't hear your steps.
• Normal — Standard ammo bullets. The regular difficulty where damage, health, enemy health, awareness (sight & sound) etc. are balanced.
• Hard — No ammo bullets.

Splinter Cell: Double Agent (Version 2)[]

• Normal — The regular difficulty where damage, health, enemy health, awareness (sight & sound) etc. are balanced.
• Hard — Damage taken is further increased.
• Expert — Damage taken is severe & hacking is more difficult.
• Elite — No ammo bullets and support gadgets.

Splinter Cell: Conviction[]

• Rookie — Enemies will detect the player at a slow rate and enemy bullet damage is reduced.
• Normal — Enemies will detect the player at a moderate rate and enemy bullet damage is balanced.
• Realistic — Enemies will detect the player at a much faster rate and enemy bullet damage is significantly increased.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist[]

• Rookie — Hostiles are slower to spot the player and deal less damage during combat.
• Normal — Moderate stealth and combat difficulty.
• Realistic — Execute Gauge refills slowly, Hostiles are faster to spot the player and do more damage in combat, ammunition is reduced.
• Perfectionist — No Execute Ability, Sonar Goggles do NOT see through walls, hostiles spot the player more easily and deal much more damage, ammunition is scarce, no resupply at Weapon Stashes.

Trivia[]

• The first game to feature an 'Easy' difficulty setting is Splinter Cell: Double Agent, while the lowest difficulty setting in the previous games has always been 'Normal' difficulty.
• The 'Perfectionist' difficulty was included in Splinter Cell: Blacklist as a difficulty mode that is more like the original Splinter Cell trilogy and removed much of the added things in Splinter Cell: Conviction like Mark and Execute and the Sonar goggles' ability to see through walls.