After all this time, we can finally say that the Splinter Cell franchise is no longer dead. Ubisoft has officially revealed that a Splinter Cell remake is currently in development and will be coming out in the future, returning fans to the stealth adventures of Sam Fisher, and hopefully having nothing to do with Ubisoft’s recent NFT venture.

What is interesting about the announcement that the franchise is continuing is the fact that it will be a Splinter Cell remake that will see the return of Fisher, rather than a brand new game. Not much is known about the current state of the game or what it will do outside of the information presented in the blog post. 

Admittedly, the Splinter Cell remake is pretty vague and obscure, likely due to the fact that this game is extremely early in development. The fact that the announcement begins by noting that Ubisoft “has greenlit the development of a Splinter Cell remake” is telling enough on its own. 

This tells us that the development has likely already begun on the game, however, it is so early on that it was just now given the go-ahead from Ubisoft. While this makes it seem like it has not even been worked on at all, it is more likely that it has been in development for some time by a small core group of developers. 

Typically in development, a small group of people will begin working on a build of a new game, or in this case a remake, that will then be presented as a pitch to the higher-ups for approval or rejection. Given that the approval seemingly just happened, the game is likely in the very, very early stages in the development cycle.

In fact, the nature of this announcement tells us that the Splinter Cell remake is likely just now about to enter full development with more people working on it, though this is not confirmed at this time. Even still, we do have some minor details about who is working on it and what their mantra is for the remake. 

It is being developed from the ground up as a remake of the original Splinter Cell, using the Snowdrop engine that is best known for games like The Division and upcoming titles including Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, the Ubisoft Star Wars game, and more. 

It is being developed by Ubisoft Toronto and will use next-generation visuals, gameplay, dynamic lighting, and shadows, making good on the promise of what players expect from the franchise. To help give an idea of the upcoming Splinter Cell remake, the creative director, Chris Auty, producer, Matt West, and technical producer, Peter Handrinos, were interviewed by Ubisoft itself. 

West began by noting that the Splinter Cell remake is a remake because it goes “a little bit further” than what a traditional remaster does. In this way, it is the original game but built from the ground up to have visuals and the quality of life that you would expect from a modern game.

Players should keep in mind that it will remain the linear game that the original was 19 years ago and not be made into the classic Ubisoft open-world formula. The development team is growing and still being built, meaning that there are plenty of job positions that are open at Ubisoft Toronto currently. 

While that might be concerning for some, there are plenty of veterans who have worked on Splinter Cell games in the past who will also be working on this title. Most notably is the fact that Ubisoft Toronto’s first released game ever was Splinter Cell: Blacklist, which was the last game in the main series to date. 

The overall takeaway from this Splinter Cell remake is that the team is building a core foundation to lead the series into later installments in the future. This could indicate that if the remake is successful enough, that we could see further remakes or perhaps even a long-awaited new title entirely. 

Regardless of how it is handled, Splinter Cell looks like it is going to be a monumental moment for fans of the series. With a remake of the original game, there is a set goal and, if it does not match what the fans expect, then there is going to be a lot of passionate feedback understandably given.

There is no release window or even year at all that was given with the Splinter Cell remake announcement. Because of this, no one should expect to see it release or even perhaps any gameplay of the game in the next year, if not even past 2023. 

This is the type of game that we will likely not see anything from until 2023 at the earliest, if we had to guess, and certainly not being released until 2024 at the earliest, if not even 2025. It really just depends on how faithful and groundbreaking of a remake this is. 

For me, personally, I am not a huge Splinter Cell fan myself as my time with the series is fairly limited outside of trying some of the games here and there. There were definitely other Tom Clancy games that I spent more time with, like the Ghost Recon series. 

That said, Blacklist was the first game that I really spent a lot of time with, and I adored that game. The multiplayer, in particular, was fantastic and something wholly unique that has not been attempted by another game since then. As such, I’m hoping that the remade Splinter Cell does have some sort of multiplayer component as the competitive stealth experience is, unfortunately, an underused area of gaming.