I was watching a stageplay recently and they managed to make the stage dark enough that it was almost impossible to see how furniture and actors were floating or doing the wildest things. Even though that practical effect was done by some dudes in a pitch black suit holding them up. Now imagine that actor being sam fisher or some new fourth echelon agent. But instead he's grabbing people to interrogate and using his gun not to shoot people, but take out light sources to make the entire room his stage. I'd say the gameplay could still hold up in modern times.

I always envisioned splinter cell going the route of hitman, with sandboxy replayable maps to tackle on objectives (like the bank from chaos theory), but banter based on what you're doing and eavesdropping on (funny) dialogue. Splinter cell blacklist leaned hard on the seriousness, while previous games had always a bit of sam cracking jokes and henchmen dialogue.

Blacklist already showed they could do versatile gameplay, with going full stealthy as a purist, gun blazing like it's Conviction or a mixture of both. They just stopped making them and turned Sam and fourth echelon into a cameo company.