Fans of Sam Fisher and the Splinter Cell games he stars in (and Tom Clancy, of course), rejoice! Ubisoft has finally announced that they’re doing a remake of them. Or rather, they’re going to do it soon. Since, you know, they’re still hiring for the job.

Splinter Cell: Almost in Development

Now hiring for Ubisoft…or Third Echelon?

Ubisoft is proud to announce that they’re finally doing a remake of the Splinter Cell games. Precisely: the first one. This won’t be just a simple remaster of the first game, either. This will be a full-on remake. Sadly, that was the good news. The bad news is that this announcement is apparently only for the green-lighting of the development. They’re literally advertising for the development jobs right there in the announcement, for Pete’s sake. According to the game’s producer Matt West:

“Although we’re still in the very earliest stages of development, what we’re trying to do is make sure the spirit of the early games remains intact, in all of the ways that gave early Splinter Cell its identity. So, as we’re building it from the ground up, we’re going to update it visually, as well as some of the design elements to match player comfort and expectations, and we are going to keep it linear like the original games, not make it open world. How do we make sure that new fans are able to pick up the controller and dive right in, and fall in love with the game and the world right from the get-go?”

Unfortunately, because Ubisoft has only just announced the development of this Splinter Cell remake, we don’t have a release date for you. In fact, we don’t even have any idea of what system it’ll be for. Guess we’ll just have to wait for word from Ubisoft for those details later.

Splinter Cell Remake: Details

Splinter Cell remake announcement picture.
It looks like Sam Fisher is peering into your soul with those NVGs.

Ubisoft’s announcement of their Splinter Cell remake actually comes with a decent amount of info on the game itself. First off, the three developers speaking for the announcement (Creative Director Chris Auty, Producer Matt West, and Technical Producer Peter Handrinos) apparently decided on a remake instead of a simple remaster due to how “revolutionary” the original game was and the fact that it’s been 19 years since the original game came out.

"Splinter Cell" box art.
Complete with dated graphics.

The developers of the Splinter Cell remake also mention that they want to really focus on the stealth elements in this game. They noted the “Stealth Action Redefined” logo from the original game, and thus they really want to preserve the feeling of that stealth focus. Another aspect of the original game they’re preserving in the linearity. Unlike the usual open world design Ubisoft are into these days, they want a more linear game path for this remake.

The Splinter Cell remake developers are also using Ubisoft’s own Snowdrop engine for the game. This is the same Snowdrop engine Ubisoft are using for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and their upcoming but still unnamed Star Wars game. They don’t have any details about what the game will look like though. They only promise that it will be better with this engine, or at least, better than other engines. And really, what developer wouldn’t say that about their own in-house game engine?

Source: Ubisoft