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In 2017, some former Telltale developers were working on a Splinter Cell sequel that eventually, due to Ubisoft’s focus on live-service games, morphed into the now-dead free-to-play FPS XDefiant.
In a Bloomberg story published on November 14 about the development of the recently released narrative-focused superhero adventure game Dispatch, we learn a little bit about a previously unknown-to-the-public Splinter Cell game that was being developed by Ubisoft San Francisco around eight years ago.
Adhoc Co-Founder Nick Herman told Bloomberg that in early 2017, he and a few colleagues left Telltale after working on Tales from the Borderlands and landed at Ubisoft San Francisco. They were tasked with developing a new entry in the tactical stealth franchise, Splinter Cell. At that point, it had been about four years since the last game, Blacklist, had been released in 2013.
“I was so excited to be a part of this and help revitalize it, because it’s been dormant for a while,” Herman told the outlet. “And we thought we could tell a great story and do something the fans would love.”
However, after working on the new Splinter Cell sequel for a few months, Ubisoft executives started disrupting development. This was when the publisher was becoming more and more focused on live-service games that could be updated for years and years, like Rainbow Six Siege and The Division 2. Ubisoft reportedly wanted all of its in-development games to include live-service elements and monetization, including the new Splinter Cell.
“We tried,” Herman told Bloomberg. “Let’s make a narrative [live-service] game. We were trying to make that make sense, and a lot of cool prototypes were made.” But it apparently became clear to those working on the doomed game that Ubisoft was no longer interested in Splinter Cell. According to Bloomberg and Herman, the project changed and evolved many times, and eventually became XDefiant, aka that short-lived live-service shooter Ubisoft killed back in June.
“It was exciting to go to work for the first six months because we thought we were going to be able to make something really great,” Herman said. “And then you realize that all of the things you care about, they don’t anymore. It’s a common thing in games.”
Ubisoft hasn’t completely given up on Splinter Cell. There’s an animated series that recently arrived on Netflix that I’m guessing you didn’t know about. And in 2021, the company confirmed Ubisoft Toronto was developing a remake of the first game. We’ve not heard much about that project since it was first revealed. Hopefully, it doesn’t morph into some Call of Duty clone.
