A new report reveals that Ubisoft's Splinter Cell franchise was set to get a brand new entry before the company shifted the project to use the Games as a Service model to create the ill-fated XDefiant. Sam Fisher fans and Splinter Cell series is on a seemingly endless wait for a new game in the franchise, especially with the remake's ongoing development issues.
With the final entry of the main series, Splinter Cell Blacklistwhich launched in 2013, fans of the franchise had to settle for cameos with the main character Sam Fisher, who appeared in games like Ghost Recon: Wildlands, Rainbow Six Siegeand even get a Netflix animated series. Ubisoft continued to address questions about the franchise at major trade shows, but nothing concrete really materialized until the remake itself was announced Splinter Cell game was announced as early as 2021. While fans are still waiting for news on the remake, it seems they were closer than they thought to an actual new entry in the popular stealth series.
A new Splinter Cell game almost happened
The new news comes from insider Jason Schreier in an article detailing how the recent hit Send came to be Speaking to members of AdHoc Studio, co-founder Nick Herman and former Telltale Games developers teamed up with Ubisoft's San Francisco office in 2017 to work on a then-secret project that was eventually planned as a new entry in Splinter Cell franchise. Herman admitted he was excited to work on the series, which had been largely dormant until then, and felt the team could not only tell a great story, but could do something with it that longtime fans would love.
However, that feeling didn't last long, as just months later, Ubisoft became very interested in the Games-as-a-Service model, which allows companies to monetize games months and sometimes years after launch, such as Fate 2, Fortniteand other online games. While the team began prototyping a GaaS narrative game, Ubisoft seemingly decided to take a detour Splinter Cell completely trying to make something competitive for an online shooter like this Call of Duty.
Overtime the work took shape and finally became XDefiantan online multiplayer shooter that collects fictional characters from many of Ubisoft's major franchises such as Division, Rainbow Six, Watch_Dogs, Ghost Recon, Far Cry, Assassin's Creed and even the aforementioned Splinter Cell. The ill-fated project rocketed to a massive player base in May 2024, becoming the fastest Ubisoft title to hit 1 million unique players, but the pace quickly slowed and xDefiant he finally ended development in December of that year.
Unfortunately, the news wasn't any better Splinter Cell series, as the previously announced remake was largely missing in action. In addition to its long development cycle, Splinter Cell Remake game director Andy Schmoll left the project. Alarmingly, Schmoll ended up replacing former game director David Grivel, who left the project sometime in 2022. The lack of news from Ubisoft and all these staff departures undoubtedly leave many fans concerned about the project overall.
Source: Bloomberg
