Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Stealth Action Redefined Combining the stealth, tactics, and action popularized in both the Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon franchises, Splinter Cell represents a new Tom Clancy series featuring a single character instead of the team-oriented play found in Red Storm's successful squad-based shooter games. The title alludes to the secret organization players are part of, an offshoot of the NSA called Third Echelon, whose members rigorously serve to protect America using whatever means necessary. Players embark on a series of missions to eliminate potential security threats by covertly infiltrating and destroying the data and communications critical to cyber-terrorist operations. The lead character, Sam Fisher, must conduct his missions without being detected or risk being disavowed by his agency and left to his own devices. Splinter Cell uses a modified version of Epic's Unreal Engine technology for its visual presentation.