It looks like the Splinter Cell remake might be about to reappear after years in the dark
Sam Fisher’s return was sneakily announced two years ago
Ubisoft might be taking this whole stealth thing a bit far when it comes to their remake of the original Splinter Cell. News of Sam Fisher’s return first snuck out at the end of 2021, with little more spotlight than a brief blog post to confirm that, yep, it’s a thing. After over two years of near-silence, it now looks like it might finally be time for Sam to emerge out of the shadows.
Typically, though, it’s not a given just yet - though the signs seem promising. Eagle-eyed fans (via Eurogamer) noticed that developers Ubisoft Toronto had updated their Facebook header image to an image of Fisher’s iconic glowing three-eyed night-vision goggles shortly after Ubisoft announced their Ubisoft Forward livestream event for June.
It’s worth noting that the image appears to be pretty much identical to the teaser image shown back in 2021, but after years of almost nothing - aside from the suggestion that it'll be a proper rewrite of the story, teased via job listings, aside - it’s something!
Ubi Toronto previously handled Far Cry 6 and Watch Dogs Legion, as well as putting in time to the Splinter Cell series a decade ago with 2013’s Blacklist. That’s the most recent Splinter Cell game, which is genuinely strange to think about as someone for whom the original run from the 2002 original through mid-noughties instalments like Pandora Tomorrow, Chaos Theory (with its excellent multiplayer) and Double Agent were constant fixtures of the hobby.
Ubisoft did announce a VR Splinter Cell a few years back, before killing it off a couple of years later - leaving this remake of the first game and whatever Splinter Cell nods find their way into free-to-play shooter XDefiant as the current vestiges of the series. When the remake was announced, creative director Chris Auty said that it would lay the foundations for "the future of Splinter Cell", so maybe it'll be a veritable flood of news after a decade-long drought.
June 10th is when we may hear more during Ubisoft’s Forward event - and what’s a couple more months to wait after years of radio silence?