Forget Star Wars And Assassin's Creed, There's One Game I Really Want To See At Ubisoft Forward 2024 (2024)

It's June, and to gamers across the world that means one thing: Game showcases. What was once the month of E3 has now been overtaken by Summer Game Fest, with individual studios hosting their own showcases across their various YouTube and Twitch channels, and this year already has a stacked roster. However, there is one event I am keeping an eye on in particular, and that's the Ubisoft Forward.

After giving players a proper look at Assassin's Creed: Shadows' characters and story through a cinematic trailer in May, the trailers for the Ubisoft Forward have focused heavily on showing more from the next entry in the Assassin's Creed series, with the strong possibility that gameplay will be shown. There has also been confirmation that the previously announced Star Wars Outlaws will appear at the event, which makes sense as the game is due to be released this August and will likely have some kind of final trailer to remind players of the game's pre-order bonuses and different editions. While I am personally looking forward to both of these titles, the trailers do also tease "more", however, and there's one particular title that Ubisoft announced years ago that I am keen to see more than any other: the Splinter Cell remake.

Will Splinter Cell Finally Make An Appearance At Ubisoft Forward 2024?

The Remake Was Announced In December 2021

Splinter Cell is one of my favorite game series - particularly the first three, although I have revisited some of the later titles as well - with Chaos Theory being my personal favorite, and its Bank mission being perhaps one of my most played missions ever, due to just how cool it is. Therefore, when Ubisoft Toronto announced that it was working on a remake of the first game with modern hardware, I was cautiously optimistic. While I was glad Ubisoft was returning to one of my favorite series, remakes can be very hit-or-miss, but I was still keen to see more due to how far development tools have come since the original game in 2002.

When the original Splinter Cell was released, its dynamic lighting mechanics were considered to be revolutionary, with Sam Fisher shooting out lights to create shadows and form his own path around levels undetected. Of course, with newer real-time lighting advancements such as ray-tracing, this could look better than ever, and recent rumors have stated that ray-traced reflections and other features add further obstacles for players to be considerate of as they work their way around the environments.

While the Ubisoft Forward reveals have focused heavily on Assassin's Creed Shadows and Star Wars Outlaws, Ubisoft Toronto changed its profile picture and banners on social media to Sam Fisher's iconic green tri-lense night-vision goggles around the time of the showcase's announcement as well, which gives me hope that the remake could make an appearance at the event. Word surrounding the game has been extremely sparse since its announcement, barring some concept art released as part of the original title's 20th Anniversary celebration in 2022, but with the game being in development for under three years by this point, I'm hoping there will at least be a proper trailer or some gameplay footage, if not a release window of some kind.

Splinter Cell Fans Have Been Waiting Far Too Long For A New Game

Blacklist Was Released In 2013

The late 90s and 2000s were a great time for stealth games. We had the Metal Gear Solid and Syphon Filter series, and Splinter Cell, but over the years these have gradually come to an end. Syphon Filter developers Bend Studio went on to develop the open-world zombie title Days Gone, and Metal Gear Solid fell apart after its creator Hideo Kojima parted ways with Konami during the production of The Phantom Pain, with Konami's ill-fated Metal Gear Survive showing the studio shouldn't carry on the franchise without Kojima at the helm, which is likely why the only Metal Gear products that have come out since have been ports of the earlier games in the series, and a remake of Snake Eater, which will reportedly include the original's audio and story.

As for Splinter Cell, us fans have been waiting for a new entry since the release of the divisive Blacklist in 2013, which I would argue wasn't actually that bad and actively tried to bring the series back to stealth after the more action-packed Conviction by at least giving players more gadgets and equipment and the option to go through levels completely undetected again. I'll admit I did find the voice change from Michael Ironside to Eric Johnson jarring at first, and the excuse that it was done purely for better performance capture didn't sit well considering other titles such as Hitman involved motion capture, but also brought back David Bateson to voice its protagonist. However, once it was revealed in an interview on the Ubisoft North America YouTube channel that Ironside stepped away from the role due to battling cancer, it became clear that this was the only choice the studio had at the time, and Ironside has since returned to the role in Ghost Recon Wildlands.

Ubisoft has clearly been aware of how popular the Splinter Cell IP is, as Sam Fisher has made further cameos in other games, appearing in Rainbow Six Siege and the ill-fated mobile title Tom Clancy's Elite Squad. However, the series itself has been in limbo, which has been extremely frustrating, likely because its more linear level structure didn't fit in with the kind of open-world games the company was becoming more well known for. At least all of the titles - including both the Xbox and Xbox 360 versions of Double Agent - have been available via Xbox's backwards compatibility scheme, so I have been able to easily revisit them while waiting extremely patiently for a new entry.

While it's unclear whether Ubisoft is using Ironside's original recordings in the remake, if he is returning to the role, or if another actor like Jeff Teravainen - who voices the character in Rainbow Six Siege - or Eric Johnson would take over the role going forward, just the fact Ubisoft is looking to properly revisit the series with a new release that is following the structure of the original gives me some hope for the future of the Splinter Cell franchise for the first time in over a decade. Alas, now I just want to actually see the remake in action to see if this hope is justified, and hopefully, this will finally happen at Ubisoft's event on June 10.

Source: Ubisoft North America

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell

Franchise

Splinter Cell

Platform(s)

Xbox , PC , PS2 , GameCube , Game Boy Advance , Mobile

Released

November 18, 2002

Developer(s)

Ubisoft Montreal

Publisher(s)

Ubisoft , Aspyr Media

Genre(s)

Stealth

How Long To Beat

13 Hours