Ghost Recon’s most recent game, 2019’s Breakpoint, was very poorly received by the Tom Clancy’s community, which felt it wasn’t differentiated enough from the more action-/less tactics-oriented The Division 2, which launched seven months earlier.
A comment to investors in May that the company was prioritizing development on free-to-play adaptations of the company’s highest profile series didn’t help Ubisoft’s image with fans, either. Reaction to the free-to-play shooters Tom Clancy’s The Division Heartland, a follow-on to The Division, and XDefiant, a mashup of three Tom Clancy series (including Splinter Cell) likewise drew complaints that Ubisoft was not listening to fans and their pent-up demand for Splinter Cell. Ubisoft’s statement gave no reason for the delay, but the publisher had to have noticed the extreme disappointment expressed in community spaces like the Ghost Recon subreddit and the announcement video’s YouTube comments. In early October, Ubisoft announced Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Frontline, a 100-player free-to-play shooter, would delay a closed technical test that had been scheduled for Oct. Polygon has reached out to a Ubisoft representative for comment. There is “a small chance” this Splinter Cell game could be announced next year, VGC said.
Ubisoft Toronto handled the most recent, 2013’s Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist for PlayStation 3, Wii U, Windows PC, and Xbox 360. Lead development on the Splinter Cell game is being handled by a studio other than Ubisoft Montreal, which developed the first of seven games in the nearly 20-year-old series, and three of the others. Video Games Chronicle sourced its report to two unnamed persons with knowledge of Ubisoft’s plans. The news comes right as a demoralized community of Tom Clancy fans practically downvoted Ubisoft’s free-to-play Ghost Recon into a delay.
We’ll keep an eye out for any new updates on this, so stay tuned.A mainline console and PC title for Ubisoft’s Splinter Cell series is in development, reports Video Games Chronicle. Of course, a game being prototyped in what sounds like a very early phase of testing is by no means indication of any solid plans – games and ideas for games get tested all the time – but combined with VGC’s report, it does leave plenty of room for optimism where Splinter Cell fans are concerned.
Grubb writes that though it wasn’t explicitly stated to be a new game in the series and was merely a vertical slice of a tutorial section, it “had the appearance of a new Splinter Cell prototype”, and combined the series’ stealth action gameplay with elements taken from the Hitman (2016) reboot. Grubb says that though he cannot confirm the veracity of the report based on what he’s heard from his sources, he does know that one of several games that Ubisoft was testing over the summer around E3 earlier this year may have been a Splinter Cell game. GamesBeat’s Jeff Grubb has now published a report as well, which (sort of) corroborates VGC’s report. More and more it has looked like Ubisoft might not be interesting in bringing the series back, but recently, a report by VGC suggested that a new Splinter Cell game is indeed in development. Ubisoft’s beloved stealth franchise Splinter Cell has been on the ice for almost a decade, with 2013’s Splinter Cell Blacklist being the last time we saw a new full-fledged mainline entry in the series, and fans have been begging for a sequel incessantly.