Jason Schreier: A New Splinter Cell Could Have Launched Long Ago If Not for Ubisoft Leadership

While Ubisoft is officially working on a Splinter Cell remake meant to revive the iconic stealth franchise and introduce it to a new generation of players, unexpected details have surfaced: it turns out the current version is far from the first attempt to bring the series back.

According to a new report from Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, Ubisoft San Francisco began developing a new Splinter Cell game back in 2017. The team was enthusiastic about the opportunity to return to the beloved stealth-action franchise and spent several months working on the project with high spirits.

However, the plans were quickly derailed by management. Seeing the rising popularity of live-service games, Ubisoft executives decided that Splinter Cell should align with “industry trends.” The studio was instructed to rework the project into a live-service model, effectively dismantling its original concept. The game eventually morphed into what later became XDefiant.

XDefiant launched with promise and showed strong potential, but was ultimately abandoned and shut down. Meanwhile, the key developers who had worked on the original Splinter Cell revival left Ubisoft and began working on their own project — Dispatch.

Ironically, in 2025 former Ubisoft developers achieved major success: both Dispatch and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 — games created by ex-Ubisoft staff — became critical hits and earned widespread acclaim.

Meanwhile, Ubisoft itself continues to face a difficult period: the company is still struggling with falling share prices, financial instability, and the threat of bankruptcy, while the long-awaited Splinter Cell Remake still has no release date. Recently, the project lost its director yet again — the second time during its development cycle.