Fans have been asking for a new main series Splinter Cell game for years. The Splinter Cell franchise has been dormant for quite some time, but it seems that the wait for a new game is nearing its end. Ubisoft has officially announced the development of a Splinter Cell remake from Ubisoft Toronto, rebuilding Sam Fisher's original adventure using the Snowdrop engine that's being used to power games like Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and the company's in-development Star Wars game.
According to Ubisoft, the Splinter Cell remake will make sure that the game retains the identity of Sam Fisher's original adventure, but with some changes. There will be big graphical updates, quality of life improvements, and things of that nature, but the game will still be a linear stealth game. Almost all new Ubisoft games nowadays are open world in some capacity, but the Splinter Cell remake will not be open world as previously rumored.
Ubisoft Toronto is hiring developers to work on the Splinter Cell remake, so the project is still in the earliest stages of development. Right now the team consists of people who worked on previous Splinter Cell games as well as newcomers. There's no word on if any actors will be returning to reprise their roles in the game, so it's unclear at this time if Michael Ironside will be back to provide the voice of Sam Fisher or not.
While some fans may have hoped for a completely original Splinter Cell game instead of a remake, there is some obvious value to going back to the original game. After all, it's been eight years since the release of the last main series Splinter Cell game, and so this way the developers can lay the foundation for potential future Splinter Cell games to build on. In fact, Ubisoft has said that this remake will allow it to "[build] a solid base for the future of Splinter Cell," indicating that brand new games may very well be in the cards.
Splinter Cell's use of light and shadows was groundbreaking at the time of its release, taking these elements further than any other stealth game had done up to that point. It was a graphical marvel on the sixth generation gaming hardware it released on, and so one can only imagine what the developers will be able to do with the Snowdrop Engine and consoles as powerful as the PS5 and Xbox Series X. It may be a long time before fans get their first real look at the Splinter Cell remake, but it will definitely be interesting to see how it turns out.
Splinter Cell is in development.
