After months of rumors and speculations that Sam Fisher would once again be dawning his green, glowing goggles to get back into action, Ubisoft has announced that a Splinter Cell Remake is currently in development. Being led by Ubisoft Toronto, the game is being built on the Snowdrop Engine which is the same engine being used on their upcoming Star Wars title and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.
The game is set to draw from the rich history of the franchise for inspiration, however, it will use earlier games as its jumping-off point. In an interview with Creative Director Chris Auty, Producer Matt West, and Technical Producer Peter Handrinos, Matt West stated:
Although we’re still in the very earliest stages of development, what we’re trying to do is make sure the spirit of the early games remains intact, in all of the ways that gave early Splinter Cell its identity. So, as we’re building it from the ground up, we’re going to update it visually, as well as some of the design elements to match player comfort and expectations, and we are going to keep it linear like the original games, not make it open world. How do we make sure that new fans are able to pick up the controller and dive right in, and fall in love with the game and the world right from the get-go?
Based on the way it was explained, it is unclear if the plan is to fully remake the first game, the first few games, or even if they are using the earlier games to create something new for the franchise. Although it is being referred to as a Remake by the development team, they make clear that a range of classic inspirations is going into it, possible it will be more.
The last game in the series was Splinter Cell: Blacklist, which was released in 2013. While it received positive reviews, it is hard to argue with a return to what made the franchise beloved back when it was originally released in 2002. As Matt stated above, the game is currently earlier in development, which lines up with rumors from earlier this year. Hopefully, the team will have more to show from the title soon.
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A Nintendo Switch trailer was also released.
According to SteamDB.
An announcement trailer was also released.