Insurgency Map Pack Crawls Out From Shadows for Splinter Cell: Conviction

The first DLC pack for Splinter Cell: Conviction has been let out of the shadows by Ubisoft. The “Insurgency Pack” is priced at $10 (800 MS Points) and will be arriving on May 27.

The “Insurgency Pack” will feature four new Deniable Ops maps that bring new settings to the title, ranging from “the docks of San Francisco to a New Orleans cemetery, a prison in Portland to a hidden research complex in Salt Lake City.” That’s a pretty wide sweep of settings, and they will be capped off with 250 Achievement Points for those of you who just want your gamerscores to sit in the 10’s of thousands.

In addition to the “Insurgency Pack”, gamers have also had free weekly DLC arriving from Ubisoft. The free DLC so far has included an MP7A1 machine pistol as well as the 3rd Echelon Map, a multiplayer map set in the 3rd Echelon Headquarters. But, Ubisoft hasn’t promised more than one free multiplayer map, so the 3rd Echelon Map may be the zenith of the free DLC being offered and as a result, the “Insurgency Pack” may be the beginning of multiple paid-DLC offerings for the title. But will it be worthwhile?

Well, to be honest, it seems that the pricing of the pack is quite reasonable at $10 (which works out to $2.50 per map). And on top of that, the locations do sound impressively diverse. Sam Fisher is clearly traveling the country, and he’s doing so cheaper than the competition. For instance, Modern Warfare 2‘s map packs have been priced at $15 and include 5 maps. Slightly more expensive? Definitely. More worthwhile? That’s up to the eye of the beholder.

Ubisoft is branching out in its own direction in terms of DLC and sales. They recently opened Ubishop, an online distribution service similar to Steam, and by pricing the map pack at $10 they may be trying to set themselves apart from the competition. Indications are that fans love the online multiplayer aspect of Splinter Cell: Conviction, so it will be interesting to see whether the “Insurgency Pack” is a success and whether it spawns more map packs for Sam Fisher diehards.

And perhaps, we’ll still see a few more free maps coming out as well. Who knows how long Ubisoft will continue supporting their “free weekly DLC” model for Conviction. Anyone want to bet on it?