VGC has reported that after a decade since the last game in the series, a new mainline Splinter Cell game has been greenlit and has entered production. the last entry in the franchise was Splinter Cell: Blacklist which was released in 2013. The eight years following its release is the longest period without a new entry in the series since Splinter Cell debuted in 2002. According to development sources, the new title is being put into production following the criticism that fans had trying to revive the series as a mobile and VR title.
Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad was a free-to-play action RPG that brought together characters from various Tom Clancy games such as Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, The Division, H.A.W.X., EndWar, and Splinter Cell. Earlier this month, the game was shut down. Also last year, Ubisoft announced new titles for Assassin’s Creed and Splinter Cell exclusive to Facebook’s Oculus VR headsets.
The new Splinter Cell game is in an early phase of development and may get announced sometime next year.
Talking about the creation of a new title in the Splinter Cell franchise, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said that the series needed to evolve before coming back. ” When you create a game, you have to make sure you will come with something that will be different enough from what you did before,” he said. “The last time we did a Splinter Cell, we had lots of pressure from all the fans actually saying, ‘Don’t change it, don’t do this, don’t do that,’ so some of the teams were more anxious to work on the brand. Now there are some things and some people that are now looking at the brand, taking care of the brand,” Guillemot added, “so at one point you will see something, but I can’t say more than that.”