Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell is a series of stealth shooter games, the first of which was released in 2002, and their tie-in novels. The protagonist, Sam Fisher, is a highly trained agent of a fictional black-ops sub-division within the NSA, dubbed "Third Echelon". The player controls Fisher to overcome his adversaries in levels. All the console and PC games in the series were positively received, and the series is commercially successful. The series was once considered to be one of Ubisoft's flagship franchises, selling more than 31 million copies as of 2011, although as of 2021 there has not been a new installment since 2013.
