There’s a remake of Splinter Cell in active development, but we have absolutely no idea what is going on with it. One of the most beloved stealth franchises has been absent for over a decade. In the early 2000s, Ubisoft published a tactical stealth game known as Splinter Cell. Players filled the shoes of a special agent known as Sam Fisher, tasked with sneaking his way through enemy bases to keep the world safe. The franchise would go on to feature seven games with Splinter Cell: Blacklist being the last one. The game was released in 2013 and although it is a great game, it didn’t sell too hot.
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The franchise was shelved for some time after that, leaving a hole in fans’ hearts. The series was always great and the Splinter Cell franchise is home to some of the best stealth games ever made, but Ubisoft moved away from the series in pursuit of big open-world games and live-service titles. Even legacy franchises like Ghost Recon ditched linear mission structures in favor of open-world mayhem, but Splinter Cell really doesn’t fit that bill. Sam Fisher would appear in other games over the years, including Ghost Recon Wildlands and Rainbow Six Siege. However, this only created more frustration from fans who felt Splinter Cell was being neglected.
What’s Going on With the Splinter Cell Remake?
After years of demand for a new game in the series, Ubisoft found a compromise. In 2021, it was confirmed that a remake of Splinter Cell was entering the early stages of development. Given how vocal fans were about this, Ubisoft wasn’t interested in letting fans beg for a new game for years until it was ready to be revealed. This meant announcing the game years before it would ever see the light of day.
However, it has been almost four years to the day and the only things we’ve seen about this Splinter Cell remake are concept art. No gameplay, no in-depth discussions about how the game is shaping up, not even a single screenshot or official piece of key art for the game. It’s total silence, and all of that feels increasingly notable as games like Marvel’s Wolverine are starting to emerge after years of silence.
Red flags were also recently raised regarding the game’s development. Tech4gamers found a Ubisoft job listing searching for a game director on Splinter Cell remake. After four years of development, it’s pretty unusual for the game to be without a director. There are cases where a director leaves a project mid-way through, but often, they are replaced by someone else at the studio or working on the game. I can’t think of too many examples where the developer puts an outside call to bring someone on the game.
Although it’s not always the case, a game director leaving a project in the midst of its development typically indicates things aren’t going smoothly. Whoever gets hired will be in charge of shaping the Splinter Cell remake, which may mean radical changes to gameplay or even how they think the story should be in this remake. Of course, they could keep things the same, but that would defeat the purpose of bringing on a totally new director.
As of right now, we’ll have to wait and see, but this new job posting does make the Splinter Cell remake feel like it’s still a couple of years away from releasing. There were rumblings that Splinter Cell would release next year, but this shake-up could change that. At the very least, Ubisoft isn’t cancelling the project. Even if there are troubles, there is enough there for the publisher to commit to seeing it through to the finish line at the moment and see a new director as a worthwhile choice, regardless of potential set backs.
In the meantime, Splinter Cell fans can enjoy the new Netflix anime series Splinter Cell: Deathwatch, which is an excellent new Sam Fisher story. It has already been renewed for a second season, so hopefully, Ubisoft can get this remake out before a whole new season of this show is released.
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Image Courtesy of Paramount
