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<ul class="summary-list"><li>Police responded to the video-game studio <keyword id="172599" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Ubisoft">Ubisoft</keyword> in <keyword id="82818" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Montreal">Montreal</keyword> on Friday afternoon, <a href="https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2020/11/13/possible-prise-dotages-chez-ubisoft-a-montreal">Le Journal de Montreal reported</a>. Reports had described it as a potential hostage situation, but it <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-police-ubisoft-1.5801236">turned out to be a hoax</a>.</li><li>Police officers surrounded the building on Saint-Laurent Boulevard in the Mile End neighborhood. A live <keyword id="6355005" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="news">news</keyword> feed showed employees on the roof. </li><li>A representative of the Montreal police service told Business Insider that a "police operation" was going on but didn't say whether it was a hostage situation.</li><li>Employees on the roof could be seen barricading the door, and employees in the building were reportedly barricaded in conference rooms.</li><li>By late Friday afternoon, the police had evacuated the building safely. "No threat has been identified for now," the police service said.</li></ul>Employees at the video-game studio Ubisoft in Montreal, Quebec, were ushered to the roof as police officers surrounded the building on Friday afternoon amid reports of a potential hostage situation. But it <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-police-ubisoft-1.5801236">turned out to be a hoax</a>.A <a href="https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2020/11/13/possible-prise-dotages-chez-ubisoft-a-montreal">video feed from Le Journal de Montreal</a> showed the scene as it unfolded at <keyword id="1839571" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Ubisoft-Montreal">Ubisoft Montreal</keyword>, on Saint-Laurent Boulevard in the Mile End neighborhood.Montreal's police service told Business Insider that a "police operation" was taking place. It did not say whether it was a hostage situation.The police service <a href="https://twitter.com/SPVM/status/1327342860404973568">said</a> that officers were responding to a 911 call and that no injuries had been reported. It said "specialized" officers were "inspecting the premises."An armored police truck was seen pulling up to the building, and employees on the roof could be seen barricading the door. Inside the building, employees were reportedly barricading themselves inside conference rooms.By late Friday afternoon, the police had safely evacuated employees and deemed the call that sparked the investigation a hoax. "No threat has been identified for now," the police service <a href="https://twitter.com/SPVM/status/1327353175670657024">said</a>. "We are currently evacuating the building."Ubisoft Montreal, the main development studio of the French game publisher Ubisoft, is responsible for major franchises like "Assassin's Creed," "Far Cry," and "Watch Dogs."Before the coronavirus pandemic, the office had hundreds of employees. But as many people have been working from home, fewer workers were in the studio on Friday afternoon.A Ubisoft representative told Business Insider, "We are aware of the situation and working with local authorities."The company provided another statement later in the afternoon, which said, "Following the reports of an incident in the studio earlier today, November 13, we are relieved to confirm that all of our team members in Ubisoft Montreal are safe and have been evacuated from the premises. We commend the strength and solidarity of all of our team members in this complex and stressful situation. We are grateful for the prompt response of the police and local authorities. We will continue to provide our teams with all the necessary support to cope with this traumatic event."Got a tip? Contact Business Insider senior correspondent Ben Gilbert via email (<a href="mailto:bgilbert@businessinsider.com">bgilbert@businessinsider.com</a>), or Twitter DM (<a href="https://twitter.com/RealBenGilbert">@realbengilbert</a>). We can keep sources anonymous. Use a non-work device to reach out. PR pitches by email only, please.

Workers at Montreal-based video-game studio Ubisoft were forced to flee to the roof in a potential hostage situation that turned out to be a hoax

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="172599" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Ubisoft">Ubisoft</keyword>, the video game giant, has been rocked through June and July by allegations of sexual harassment and assault made against senior staff.</li><li>CEO Yves Guillemot has promised sweeping changes as seemingly "untouchable" senior employees resign or are suspended pending the results of investigations.</li><li>But some staff are skeptical. More than a dozen current and former employees told Business Insider that misogyny was deep-rooted at the firm, which has 18,000 staff and offices around the world.</li><li>As well as making fresh allegations of sexual harassment, including against editorial vice president Tommy François, they warned that getting rid of individuals would not lead to widespread cultural change.</li><li>François did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Ubisoft declined to comment directly on specific allegations.</li></ul>During a business trip to Montreal in 2016, Tommy François, one of the most senior creative minds at video game giant Ubisoft, told male and female colleagues sitting around the breakfast table that he had spent the entire night masturbating, two people present told Business Insider.As everyone ate eggs and muesli from the hotel buffet, he showed coworkers a video he claimed to have watched during the night, they said. Five current and former Ubisoft employees who have worked in the same office as François told Business Insider that he regularly judged female colleagues' looks out loud, massaged people without asking permission ("He never asked, he just did it," one woman said), and touched men's genitals in the elevator by playing a French game called "chat-bite," which would roughly translate to "dick-tag." Many of the stories told to Business Insider echo those in an extensive report in French national newspaper Libération, <a href="https://next.liberation.fr/images/2020/07/01/recits-de-harcelement-et-d-agressions-sexuelles-a-ubisoft-les-jeux-video-c-est-fun-on-peut-tout-fair_1793062">published July 1</a>.Tommy François did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Business Insider. He denied the allegations in the Libération report through a legal representative, Jérémie Assous. Assous also did not respond to Business Insider's requests for comment.Ubisoft confirmed to Business Insider it has placed François on administrative leave, pending the results of an investigation. But allegations of misogyny at Ubisoft — which is best known for the Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Watch Dogs series and has offices all over the world — extend far beyond one man. For this article, Business Insider spoke to more than a dozen current and former employees whose careers at the company spanned the last 15 years. The majority said that the departures of individuals will not alone change the company's culture.Read more... <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/three-more-executives-leave-ubisoft-over-sexual-misconduct-allegations-2020-7">Gaming giant Ubisoft sheds 2 executives amid huge uproar over sexual misconduct allegations</a>Maxime Beland, an editorial vice president based in Toronto, resigned on July 5 after facing multiple accusations of harassment, and allegations that he put his hands around a female colleague's neck. The allegations first emerged on social media and <a href="https://kotaku.com/ubisoft-employees-have-grave-concerns-over-toronto-stud-1844277486">were reported by Kotaku</a>. Beland has so far declined to comment on these allegations, and Ubisoft said it would continue to investigate him after his departure.On July 12, three of Ubisoft's most senior employees stepped down amid growing allegations of harassment at the company.Serge Hascoet, the company's chief creative officer, resigned. An Ubisoft HR source told <a href="https://www.liberation.fr/futurs/2020/07/10/harcelement-sexuel-a-ubisoft-on-savait_1793985">Libération</a> that Hascoet was known "for his toxicity, his misogyny, his homophobia" — he didn't respond to questions from the newspaper.Yannis Mallat, head of the company's Canadian operations, including its world-renowned studio in Montreal, also stepped down. Ubisoft said the "recent allegations that have come to light in Canada against multiple employees make it impossible for him to continue in this position."And global head of HR Cécile Cornet left her role, but remains at the company in a new position. Ubisoft said she believed stepping down "is in the best interest of the company's unity."<div type="image" title="Yves Guillemot, Ubisoft" height="2000" width="3000" msid="77158006" hostid="261"></div>Ubisoft cofounder and CEO Yves Guillemot has promised "profound changes across the company to improve and strengthen our workplace culture," and, as <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ubisoft-ceo-yves-guillemot-responds-sexual-harassment-allegations-at-studio-2020-6">revealed by Business Insider</a>, has pledged to "personally follow" each allegation. The company has brought in external investigators. And given both the tidal wave of similar allegations across the entire industry and the size of Ubisoft, which has a market cap of $8.5 billion and 18,000 employees, Guillemot's handling of his company could be a turning point in a long-standing battle against sexism in video game development.Some at Ubisoft remain skeptical. A sexist culture stretches from "top to bottom," one former editorial employee who worked for Ubisoft for four years in the 2010s said.She shared with Business Insider allegations that she was harassed by multiple men of varying seniority in Ubisoft's Paris office. One man badgered her about having sex with him on a near-daily basis, she said. She said he would sit next to her and ask where he fit into her calendar, and what room they would have sex in. "It was horrible," she said.Another man regularly greeted her with a kiss on each cheek, she said. "La bise" is a common greeting in France — but he also ran his hand from her neck to the bottom of her back as he kissed her, she said. She said that a third man, whom she trusted, and who still works at the company, put his hand on her leg while she was asleep on a flight. She awoke to his hand creeping up her thigh, she told Business Insider, and jumped out of her seat. That same day, she described the incident to another person who had been on the flight. That person confirmed to Business Insider they had heard the story.The culture spread outward from François, she said, through a tight-knit "boys' club" at Ubisoft's Editorial Creative Services (ECS) team, which comprises around 25 people, and out to other editorial staff in the Paris office. Nearly all the reports of misconduct in the Paris office stem from the editorial floor, according to the sources who spoke to us.When the former employee entered the office, or crossed the open-plan editorial floor, male colleagues would regularly talk about "how my hair was, how I was dressed, if it was good or not, how my body was," she said. This was confirmed by another person, who said they witnessed the behavior. She was too scared to wear high heels or certain dresses — and too scared to drink at work events, she told Business Insider. Two years after leaving the company, she said she is still afraid of working in an office. Several other employees told Business Insider they sought psychological help after working at the company.She is skeptical that getting rid of François will make a real difference — Ubisoft needs to "purge the studio" if it wants cultural change, she said. "François is one of many other men … I think it's much, much bigger. It's a male culture, and the roots are super deep."<div type="image" title="Tommy Francois (R), Ubisoft" height="1285" width="1713" msid="77158007" hostid="261"></div>Multiple sources said those roots stretch across the Atlantic, too. Chelsea O'Hara, who worked at Ubisoft Toronto between 2016 and 2018, <a href="https://chelseamarieohara.com/#/Papers/My-Story-Ubisoft-Toronto">wrote a blog post</a> on July 2 in which she described being groped in the back of a taxi by a coworker on the way home from an event. She told Business Insider that the incident occured in late 2017, and that she was drunk at the time, but aware of what was happening. She felt "shocked and vulnerable," she said. She did not later confront the man or report the incident to HR. A former colleague of O'Hara confirmed to Business Insider that she told him about the alleged assault in early 2018.O'Hara told Business Insider she was "super pessimistic" about the prospect of cultural change."Removing a few directors — that's just PR," she said. "You are going to have to upend the entire foundation of that company."Both O'Hara and the former Paris employee were critical of Ubisoft's HR department. Each Ubisoft studio has dedicated senior HR staff, and each project or game is assigned at least one HR rep. The former Paris employee said she could talk to neither HR nor her manager, because she felt both would protect the men who harassed her. She did not report the incidents described above to HR."The boys' club was protected by Tommy," she said, adding François was himself protected by other senior staff. O'Hara said people in HR had protected male colleagues, which is why she did not report instances of harassment and assault to the company. She also told Business Insider she "already had to carry the trauma," and did not wish to relive it. "Unless they get rid of HR leaders, directors, people that covered up … they are not going to be able to see real change." A third woman, who still works at the company, said she complained to HR about a manager who had commented on the clothes she wore, and discussed the appearance of other women. The manager also pitted her professionally against other employees and told her she couldn't be friends with certain colleagues, she said — it got to the point that she "couldn't stand going to work." Her HR rep seemed, at first, incredibly helpful, but later she was told not to make "too much of a fuss," she said.Employees were encouraged not to discuss their issues with one another, she added.Other current and former employees told Business Insider that complaints to HR about alleged harassment and toxicity resulted in no action. In a mail to staff on July 12, CEO Guillemot said the company needed to "strengthen our HR function, restructure it further and adapt to the new challenges of our industry."Official guidance could be part of the problem. <div type="image" title="Assassin's Creed Odyssey poster" height="1686" width="2500" msid="77158012" hostid="261"></div>An Ubisoft HR document from 2019, distributed to employees in Canada and reviewed by Business Insider, said that the first response to sexual harassment should be to talk to the harasser, rather than to a manager or HR.Anyone who witnesses harassment against a colleague should "discuss the matter directly with the people involved," it said. It only recommends reporting the incident to a manager, or to HR, if the harassment "persists." The guidance also describes a scenario in which an employee gets "recurring jokes about my outfit from the team I work with. At first they made me laugh, but now they are slipping into sexist remarks and I'm starting to feel uncomfortable. What can I do?" The recommended course of action is to talk to the people making the comments "so everyone understands and respects your discomfort." Employees should speak to their manager or HR if they are "not comfortable talking to the team directly.""Sexist jokes are not tolerated at Ubisoft," it said.Employees were asked to sign a package of HR guidance on anti-corruption, racism, and harassment that contained the document. One former employee, who worked in an Ubisoft Canada office for several years and said she had been "humiliated" by sexual jokes during a meeting, told Business Insider she refused to sign. "I didn't, because I actually read it," she said.She called the departure of people like Hascoet a "great start, but only a start." A former designer, who worked at the company in Paris for a decade, said Hascoet's resignation showed that nobody is "untouchable," but he feared "nothing will change in the long run.""Now Ubisoft needs to do a profound change to its systems, not just remove a few visible figures. Can they do it? I don't know. Habits die hard," he said.The most optimistic member of staff Business Insider spoke to, a current employee, said the departure of Francois and Hascoet would solve "most of the toxic behaviours within the editorial" team and "send a global message about how to treat such incidents in the future, i.e. nobody is untouchable." But even she wondered how the company "will deal with current and past complaints. If the effort stops here, it would be a shame."<h3>"I guarantee you there will not be a single white man in those three hires"</h3>Part of that effort will include hiring women in newly created senior roles, according to a source currently at the company, who wished to remain anonymous. The tight-knit group of editorial vice presidents — who control the creative direction of the company's games, and which previously included Maxime Beland — will grow from five to at least eight, and the shortlist for the roles is dominated by women, both from inside and outside the company, the source said. "I guarantee you there will not be a single white man in those three hires."Much of the responsibility for change, including new hires, will fall on the CEO's shoulders.But out of the dozen current and former employees Business Insider interviewed for this piece, many could not believe Yves Guillemot, who founded the company with his brothers in 1986, was oblivious to the toxic culture growing beneath him over three decades."In my 10 years in Ubisoft I have come to really like Yves … but he's too nice and loyal with people who have been there since the beginning, and overlooks a lot of nasty things as a result," the former Paris designer said.Yves Guillemot did not respond to an interview request.One current senior employee at Ubisoft's Paris HQ, who wished to remain anonymous, told Business Insider that staff are split about Yves Guillemot's sincerity. Most believe he genuinely wants change, and see Hascoet's departure as support for that. Others don't buy it. A third group thinks the recent wave of allegations are exaggerated. Many people don't know what to believe, and are awaiting evidence of organizational change, the source said. If Guillemot is fully on board, he will need to convince other senior staff.One current editorial vice president said in a recent Facebook post, seen by Business Insider, that he was "enraged" by the recent Liberation article containing allegations of harassment — not, apparently, by the alleged actions of his colleagues, but by the framing of the article itself. "I have a pretty good grasp of the reality and the abject manipulation of the reality to garner clicks makes me want to vomit," he wrote in a post on Facebook in French.When contacted by Business Insider, he asked that his name not be published. He said he "might not" have known every detail about the case when he published the post, but did not express remorse at posting it.Ubisoft declined to comment for this article, instead directing Business Insider to recent public statements. In the most recent, Yves Guillemot admitted that "Ubisoft has fallen short in its obligation to guarantee a safe and inclusive workplace environment for its employees." The "toxic" behavior at the company is "in direct contrast to values on which I have never compromised — and never will. I am committed to implementing profound changes across the company to improve and strengthen our workplace culture," he said.It may take more than new hires and promises from Guillemot to change the culture at Ubisoft — and convince women that they are safe at the company.Another former designer, who worked at Ubisoft's Montreal office for several years in the mid-2000s and made multiple complaints about male colleagues' behavior to HR at the time, compared the recent departures of Hascoet and Mallat to the executions of two French monarchs in 1793. It was six years from their beheadings at the Place de la Concorde, 8km from Ubisoft's Paris headquarters, to the end of the French Revolution. Changing Ubisoft may take just as long, she said.Ubisoft has "chopped off Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette's heads," she said. "Of course they're the root, but the next two layers ... I don't even know what they'll do with that problem."Additional reporting by Shona Ghosh.If you have been sexually assaulted, harassed, or otherwise harmed during your time in the video games industry, we want to hear from you. Contact Business Insider associate editor Samuel Horti via encrypted messaging app Signal (+447801504020), encrypted email (shortiBI@protonmail.com), standard email (shorti@businessinsider.com), or Twitter DM (@SamuelHorti). We can keep sources anonymous. Use a non-work device to reach out. PR pitches by standard email only, please.

Current and former staff at gaming giant Ubisoft make new allegations of sexual harassment and HR failures, warning senior staff exits won't alter 'deep-rooted, toxic' culture

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">HeydayHeyday CEO Steve Desjarlais thinks his company's chatbot service can help retailers offer online customers more personalized service.</div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>Montreal-based <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/heyday">Heyday</a> has developed a chat service for retailers and other companies that interact directly with consumers.</li><li>The service uses <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/artificial-intelligence">artificial intelligence</a> to answer routine questions and to direct customers to knowledgeable human sales representatives when needed.</li><li>The chat service is designed to work with the major messaging apps, including <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/facebook-messenger">Facebook Messenger</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/imessage">Apple iMessage</a>.</li><li>The company recently raised $2 million in seed funding to promote its service using the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/pitch-deck">pitch deck</a> below.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/prime?module=article&amp;area=summary">Click here for more BI Prime stories</a>.</li></ul>Two decades ago, people who were trying to figure out the right computer or refrigerator to buy likely would have gone to a store and talked with one of the sales representatives in the appropriate department.Today, consumers typically do their research and much of their shopping on their phones and computers. But Steve Desjarlais thinks many would love to have the same kind of individualized attention and expert recommendations online that they used to get in brick-and-mortar stores.Desjarlais's company, Heyday, has created a chat service that's designed to help online retailers do just that. The service uses an artificial-intelligence powered chatbot to answer routine questions, figure out what consumers are shopping for, and to make general product suggestions. When customers need more help, the AI service directs them to human representatives, then helps those representatives answer their questions."With Heyday, we can bring back the conversation we had 20 years ago" between customers and sales representatives, Desjarlais said.<h2>Heyday merges AI with human intelligence</h2>Heyday's <keyword id="6354851" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="retail">retail</keyword> and business customers - which include Ford and French food conglomerate Danone - use its service to power the live-chat features in their apps and on their web sites. When a consumer clicks on a live-chat link, it activates the startup's chatbot. That AI-based service is able to tap into retailers' product, customer, and other databases to answer shoppers' questions.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">HeydayHeyday initially built out and developed its service without any outside funding.</div></div></div>When customers have questions the bot can't answer, it's designed to connect them with a sales representative that's knowledgeable about the particular products they're shopping for. The representative, who may be in a central call center or on the floor of a store, interacts with customers using a smartphone chat app. The app allows them to make recommendations with a few taps. The system is intended to work seamlessly; the human sales representative can see customers' previous interactions with the bot, so they don't have to repeat questions."We give the sales person the tools so they can engage [customers on their phones] in the same way they do with people in front of them," said Desjarlais, who previously worked as the head of product at video-game publisher Ubisoft.Heyday, which is based in Montreal, has designed its service to be available through many of the major messaging apps, including Apple's iMessage and Facebook Messenger.After founding the company in 2017, Desjarlais and his partners essentially bootstrapped Heyday for its first two years. They were able to develop the product, build out a 23-person team, and attract big-name customers with basically no marketing budget speak of, he said.The company now will have the opportunity to promote its service much more widely. In April <a href="https://www.heyday.ai/seed-round-announcement-press-release/">it closed a $2 million seed funding round</a> led by investment fund Innovobot, and Desjarlais is planning to use the funds primarily on sales and marketing."We're really proud of what we achieved, but now that we have raised $2 million, we will just open the flood gates and [promote] our solution everywhere," he said.Here's the pitch deck Desjarlais and Heyday used to raise its seed-funding round:

Here's the pitch deck a Montreal startup used to raise $2 million to get the word out about its AI-powered chatbot after funding it themselves for two years

<div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image on-image"></div></div>
The beauty of Ubisoft's open-world "Assassin's Creed" series isn't necessarily the gameplay or the characters. 
It's how amazingly real the settings look. 
The games are historically accurate and so full of rich detail, you almost feel like you're visiting the locations in real life. 
Previous games have taken place in 15th-century Florence, Venice, and most recently, America during the Revolution, and on the high seas during the 18th century. But with the next next iteration, called "Assassin's Creed: Unity," Ubisoft decided to go back to the franchise's roots and set the game back in a densely populated European city: Paris. 
"When we started 'Unity,' we knew that this was going to be the first fully 'next-gen' title of 'Assassin's Creed,'" Ubisoft Montreal creative director Alexandre Amancio told Business Insider.
"Because we knew this, we also knew this was probably a good time to go back to the roots. Any franchise, be it video game or movie, especially those that rely on rich narratives, tend to start becoming bogged down by the weight of their own mythology. So we knew that this was going to be a sort of new start."
<div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"></div></div>When the first "Assassin's Creed" game came out in 2007, it introduced something called "social stealth," where you could blend in with the crowds.
The idea of interactive crowds was new to the video game industry at the time. And back then, Ubisoft boasted that there were 200 nonplayable characters loaded at once.
With "Unity," that number has been boosted to thousands. 
The team looked at several different timelines in Paris' history and landed on setting it during the French Revolution.
"It's a period where not only is there political upheaval and a lot of interesting and famous historical characters, but there's huge crowds. And the crowds are not happy," Amancio said. "It offered the proper fuel for our new narrative."
And much like in the games before it, the imagery is stunning.

These Video Game Images Of Paris Look So Vivid, We Mistook Them For The Real Thing

<div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image on-image">Ubisoft</div></div>"<a href="http://splintercell.ubi.com/blacklist/en-us/home/index.aspx" target="_blank">Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell</a>" video game series will continue push forward the stealth and espionage gameplay genre for a long time to come. We have <keyword id="641921" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Tom-Clancy">Tom Clancy</keyword> to thank for that.
With <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tom-clancy-dead-celebrated-thriller-author-dies-at-age-66-2013-10">Clancy's passing today</a>, a best selling and prolific author - yes he had writers churning out stories in his name - is lost. Clancy had many detractors with critics often labeling him as an airport traveler's companion guide. His books were the ones found in the airport shops, in the small rack in the local supermarket and with dedicated shelf space at Barnes and Noble and other book stores. 
Tom Clancy turned himself into a brand. 
He's been a driving force in film as well as on the page with credits to films like "The Hunt For Red October" and "A Clear And Present Danger." 
I personally never read his novels but I did enjoy the movies. But what really really stood out for me and gave me hours upon hours of enjoyment were a few installments in the "<keyword id="1299581" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Splinter-Cell">Splinter Cell</keyword>" video game series. 
"Splinter Cell" was Clancy's second foray into the gaming arena, which he jumped into with Ubisoft back in 2000 to develop the game for a 2002 release on the then new Xbox, Playstation 2, Nintendo GameCube and PC and Mac. His first was with "Rainbow Six," in 1998, an excellent game and franchise along with "Splinter Cell."
Gamer's were initially skeptical of how "Splinter Cell" would turn out, but when "Splinter Cell" hit shelves it was <a href="http://www.ign.com/articles/2002/11/18/splinter-cell-review" target="_blank">met with rave reviews</a> and an enthusiastic group of gamers looking for something a little different from the established franchise "Metal Gear Solid."
In the game, we play as Sam Fisher (voiced by Michael Ironside) a black ops uber spy working for the NSA who's out to stop some nefarious Clancyesque group of bad guys. You do this by lurking in the shadows, being patient, and striking at your enemies with various gadgets and moves when the time is right. 
The gameplay and plot driven story in combination with the powerful Unreal Engine driven graphics provided a unique experience. But one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had came with the sequel, "<a href="http://www.ign.com/articles/2004/03/25/splinter-cell-pandora-tomorrow-10" target="_blank">Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow</a>" in 2005.
"Pandora Tomorrow" provided me with one of the first compelling online multiplayer experiences on Xbox Live. With 2-on-2 mercenary versus spies gameplay, I had many sleepless weekend nights occupied by sneaking through the shadows and breaking necks with my online buddies.
<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image on-image">YoutubeMerc is not long for the world.</div></div></div>This was also one of the first games where I completely stopped playing through the single player campaign because all I wanted to do was jump into matches with my friends online. There was just something incredibly enjoyable about creeping up behind a merc who was talking to his teammate, then dropping him in a variety of ways and laughing as you do it in the knowledge his partner heard the whole thing. 
Crawling through vent shafts as a spy, or blasting away at spies with my weapons as a merc while trying to protect the objective on a number of solid maps was thrilling. 
Personally, I never quite recaptured the magic with other Splinter Cell games after Pandora Tomorrow, but the series has continued on with critical acclaim and commercial success. It is Ubisoft Montreal's top franchise along with the "Assassin's Creed". And really, there would be no "Assassin's Creed" without the success and evolution of stealth gameplay brought on by the "Splinter Cell" series. 
The newest Tom Clancy game "<a href="http://splintercell.ubi.com/blacklist/en-us/home/index.aspx" target="_blank">Blacklist</a>" hit shelves in August of this year, and once again garnered excellent reviews. There's no doubt the "Splinter Cell" series will continue on into the next generation of consoles and carry on the legacy of spy thriller espionage that Clancy was known for.

You Searched For "Ubisoft Montreal" and got 5 results

Workers at Montreal-based video-game studio Ubisoft were forced to flee to the roof in a potential hostage situation that turned out to be a hoax

Ben Gilbert

Current and former staff at gaming giant Ubisoft make new allegations of sexual harassment and HR failures, warning senior staff exits won't alter 'deep-rooted, toxic' culture

Samuel Horti

Here's the pitch deck a Montreal startup used to raise $2 million to get the word out about its AI-powered chatbot after funding it themselves for two years

Troy Wolverton

These Video Game Images Of Paris Look So Vivid, We Mistook Them For The Real Thing

Karyne Levy

'Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell' Will Carry On The Author's Legacy Long After His Death

Chris C Anderson

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