1 articlesFans of the Splinter Cell franchise might be disappointed, as a new report suggests that Ubisoft was making a new Splinter Cell game only for it to get scrapped later on.
According to the report, Ubisoft was working on a Splinter Cell sequel back in 2017. Unfortunately, due to the company’s obsession with the Games-as-a-Service model, the project evolved several times.
Eventually, it became XDefiant, the free-to-play first-person shooter, which was unfortunately discontinued as its studio got shut down on June 3, 2025.
The report came from Jason Schreier, who posted his interview on Bloomberg with members of AdHoc Studio, the guys behind the new game Dispatch.
Based on the interview, AdHoc Studio co-founder Nick Herman revealed that he and his team were working on a new entry for the Splinter Cell franchise. He admitted his excitement for the project, considering how there was no new entry in the franchise for a long time.
“I was so excited to be a part of this and help revitalize it, because it’s been dormant for a while,” Herman recalled. “And we thought we could tell a great story and do something the fans would love.”
Herman and the team then worked on the new project for several months. However, development didn’t last long as Ubisoft was obsessed with the Games-as-a-Service model during that time.
He recalled that Ubisoft then went on to pressure all of its projects to follow the GaaS model. The team tried their best to come up with a narrative GaaS game, even citing that a handful of cool prototypes were made.
XDefiant was Supposed to Be a New Entry to the Splinter Cell Franchise – Or Was It?
Unfortunately, nothing took Ubisoft’s interest. Later on, the company lost interest in the original Splinter Cell project. It evolved many times, until it became the now dead XDefiant.
Herman recalls the times he and his team were working on the project:
“It was exciting to go to work for the first six months because we thought we were going to be able to make something really great. And then you realize that all of the things you care about, they don’t anymore.”
When XDefiant was released to the market back in May 2024, it managed to hit 1 million unique players in a short time, making it the fastest Ubisoft title to do so.
Unfortunately, it failed to maintain its momentum for a short time, and development then halted the same year.
While that’s definitely sad news for long-time fans of the Splinter Cell franchise, former executive producer for XDefiant Mark Rubin refutes the report, stating that they didn’t pivot off Splinter Cell to make XDefiant.
In his post on X (formerly Twitter), Rubin claimed:
“When I got to Ubisoft, they had been working on a game for a year that was very ambitious but was struggling to find the fun. And it was NOT a Splinter Cell game.”
He then mentioned that while it’s possible that Ubisoft was working on Splinter Cell before Rubin joined the company, it was never a thing while he was there.
It can be recalled that the development of the alleged Splinter Cell game was in 2017, while Rubin joined Ubisoft to develop XDefiant was on 2019.
That said, Splinter Cell fans still have hope as a remake of the original Splinter Cell is in the works.
[content-egg module=Amazon template=top_listing keyword=”splinter cell” group_pick=”priciest”]
