Goggles, suits and firearms | Gear and plane upgrades Splinter Cell: Blacklist Guide
Last update: 11 May 2016
As you start the game, Fisher only has standard goggles at his disposal that come equipped with night vision. By default, the sonar goggles are unavailable and I recommend against wasting the 100 thousand dollars to unlock them because you will obtain these, for free, , after the third mission in the campaign mode. When it comes to the remaining upgrades for the goggles, they are expensive and little do they change, by improving the enemy detection, negligibly, and helping you move around. I recommend that you wait with buying these until you have made all of the most important purchases.
A very important issue is wearing the best available ops suit because, depending on the adopted playing style, it will help you hide effectively or win direct fights with the enemy forces. The three most important components are torso, pants and boots. I recommend that you purchase further upgrades to your suit, from these three categories, on a regular basis It's worth noting that the best elements for the suit are unlocked only after you complete the optional missions assigned by Grim (for Ghost and Panther styles) and Briggs (for Assault/attack). Buying more expensive gloves isn't a priority, although it's worth knowing that better gloves make it easier to handle firearms. You can ignore the Lights category altogether because this has purely aesthetic meaning.
If you want to complete the game with adherence to this guide, I recommend that you postpone buying firearms because you isn't going to use it while completing the single player main campaign mode, because you will find it useless. Better arms gain meaning only in the case of the optional missions . Buying a new pistol isn't a key issue and, instead, it would be better to consider obtaining a better secondary weapon. If you are going to avoid killing the enemies at all cost, you should consider a sub-machine gun or a sniper rifle as your choice. Otherwise, you should invest in an assault rifle of big firepower. Regardless of the models that you are going to choose remember that some of them are initially unavailable, and only after appropriate upgrades for the plane are bought, do you get the access to them (more about this in the next subchapter of this guide).
The last issue is the special weapon. By default, Fisher has only the stun gun, i.e. a middle range weapon that paralyzes with electrical shocks, as its only function. I recommend that you unlock the crossbow as soon as possible and buy all available upgrades for it, even though this may turn out to be costly. The crossbow is an ideal gadget for sneak actions. Its main upsides are a quite long range and versatility because, thanks to various upgrades, it can be used to stun with electrical shock, put to sleep, divert attention and send EMP charges. This means, of course, that the crossbow can easily supplant, as many as, four standard gadgets.