Report: Ubisoft Worked on New Splinter Cell Game That Spiraled Into XDefiant Thanks to Live Service Goals
Apparently, Ubisoft was very close to reviving Splinter Cell, but the project ultimately ended up being shelved and transformed into the ill-fated XDefiant — an arcade shooter that was shut down less than a year after its 2024 launch.
This information isn’t some baseless rumor either, as it was shared by Nick Herman, a developer who worked on the game before leaving Ubisoft and co-founding the studio behind the episodic game Dispatch.
XDefiant Was Born from a Cancelled Splinter Cell Game
Speaking to Bloomberg, Herman said, “I was so excited to be a part of this and help revitalize it, because it’s been dormant for a while, and we thought we could tell a great story and do something the fans would love.”
According to Bloomberg, the game was in production for a few months, during which the team repeatedly faced shifting executive demands. Herman confirmed that Ubisoft, which at the time was becoming heavily focused on games as a service (GAAS), pressured the project to adopt service-based elements.
He explained that the team “tried” to make a narrative GAAS game work, building several “cool” prototypes while attempting to meet the company’s push for long-term monetizable features.
However, over time, Ubisoft lost interest in the Splinter Cell game and shifted it into something designed to compete with Call of Duty. That decision gave rise to XDefiant, which, while it stormed impressively out of the gate, couldn’t continue its momentum and was ultimately shut down last June.
While this Splinter Cell game was shelved, Ubisoft hasn’t abandoned the franchise entirely. Ubisoft Toronto is officially working on a remake of the original Splinter Cell game, built from the ground up using Ubisoft’s Snowdrop engine. However, it doesn’t appear things are going smoothly, as we haven’t heard or seen anything about the project since its announcement four years ago.
In other news, Ubisoft has delayed some of its biggest upcoming games to ensure higher quality and commercial success.
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Idiots. Morons. Plain and simple. You had something and you lost it a long time ago…….. and its shows. Ubisoft is just going to have to get comfortable with us not buying their games OR playing them if they are free.
Focusing on “Multiplayer First” is the biggest downfall on this topic.