wounded extracting him and dies soon afterwards. With the encryption key, the NSA discover that Nikoladze has been using a network of unconventional relays to communicate with Georgian military cells. Tracing the full relay network back to the Chinese embassy in Yangon, Myanmar, Fisher is sent in discreetly to investigate. Fisher discovers from captured U.S. soldiers and high-ranking Chinese diplomats that Nikoladze is working alongside a rogue collective of Chinese soldiers led by General Kong Feirong, after rescuing them from being executed on a live web broadcast. After killing Grinko in a firefight when he attempts to kill the Americans and Chinese, Fisher moves to capture Feirong for information on Nikoladze's location. After preventing him from committing suicide in a drunken stupor, Feirong reveals that Nikoladze had fled back to Georgia in order to activate a device codenamed "The Ark". Infiltrating the Georgian presidential palace where Nikoladze and new Georgian president Varlam Cristavi are, Fisher attempts to recover the key to the Ark, which he learns is in fact a nuclear suitcase bomb that has been placed somewhere in the United States. Fisher corners Nikoladze, who bargains to give the Ark key in exchange for safe passage out of Georgia. After Cristavi's forces arrive and escort Nikoladze to safety, Lambert rescues Fisher from execution by creating a diversion via power blackout. Discovering that Nikoladze is offering the Ark's location for protection, Fisher assassinates him. The National Guard eventually locates the bomb and evacuates an apartment complex in Hope's Gate, Maryland under the pretense of a gas leak before secretly recovering the weapon. Despite a war being averted, Nikoladze's corpse sparks international backlash due to the suspicious circumstances around his death. Watching the U.S. president give a speech on the end of the crisis, Fisher then receives a secure phone call from Lambert for another assignment. Development The game originally started development as a sci-fi, James Bond type game called The Drift, which Ubisoft intended to be "a Metal Gear Solid 2 killer". The game's producer Mathieu Ferland said "Metal Gear Solid was a huge inspiration for Splinter Cell." The game's designer and writer Clint Hocking also said Splinter Cell "owes its existence to" the Metal Gear series, while noting he was also influenced by System Shock, Thief and Deus Ex. Because the development team was aiming for a Teen ESRB rating, the team tried to minimize the level of violence.