When Splinter Cell: Conviction was first announced a few years back, Sam Fisher was different. He had a moppish haircut. People made fun of it. Now? Now the long locks are gone.

The snippet of footage leaked from Ubisoft's press site over the weekend shows Sam with a haircut that's a little more...age-appropriate. I liked his floppy do, gave the hard man a much-needed air of "lattes on a Parisian side-street with a beautiful, complicated stranger", but I don't work in marketing.

Marketing people do. And it looks like the mis-labelled "emo" backlash has put Ubisoft off, resulting in the leaner, meaner style Fisher sports today. Fans of the shaggy Sam will have to hope he adopts the style at a different point of the game.

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