After a string of successful games starting in 2002, the game’s sales and popularity declined until Ubisoft decided to put a stop to it after 2013’s Blacklist. Since then, fans have been asking Ubisoft to go back and work on Splinter Cell again. However, if we are to believe the recent rumors, Splinter Cell might be making a comeback, but not in a way that most people would prefer.
What do you think of an open-world Splinter Cell game?
Ever since Ubisoft struck gold with its open-world games, it’s pretty much stuck with it. Following the success of 2017’s Assassin’s Creed Origins, nearly every game Ubisoft has developed and/or published since has had an open-world environment. This includes Immortals Fenyx Rising, which we included in our list of the most underrated games of 2020. Unfortunately, Ubisoft’s formula has run its course, with many gamers asking for Ubisoft to try out something else. Instead, it appears that the controversial publisher is doubling down on it with one of its most beloved franchises.
“A more stealthy version of Assassin’s Creed” “Similar to how Halo Infinite has done its Open World” pic.twitter.com/eqSzRplhu5 — Tom Henderson (@Tom_Henderson) December 8, 2021 As per Tom Henderson’s tweet, Ubisoft is working on a “more stealthy version of Assassin’s Creed” as a base for the new Splinter Cell game. He added that the studio is going to do to Splinter Cell what 343 Industries did to Halo Infinite as far as the open-world setting goes. The latter is good news, especially since many critics loved Infinite’s open-world setting, among other things. Unfortunately, the decision to go open-world is a slippery slope, and Splinter Cell might end up being too much like Far Cry 6 and Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla with minimal stealth mechanics. Of course, Ubisoft has yet to confirm this, so it’s best to take what Henderson said with a grain of salt. But, if what Henderson is saying is true, then we can only hope that Ubisoft can learn from all the criticism that its recent open-world titles have received. Now, we’re not saying that open-world settings and stealth won’t work. Metal Gear Solid: The Phantom Pain, Dishonored, and the recent Hitman trilogy are good examples of this. We worry that Ubisoft will try to lean too much on the open-world part of the game. This has already happened before, with Assassin’s Creed eschewing its former stealth-oriented mechanics for more action-oriented gameplay with an open-world setting. Hopefully, Ubisoft decides to shed some light on this going forward. Until then, all fans can do is speculate and wait. In other news, Ubisoft quickly found out that you can’t just announce that you’re adding NFTs to one of your more popular games and assume that everyone will just welcome it. After confirming that they’re going to introduce NFTs to Ghost Recon: Breakpoint. the publisher quickly took down the video after it was disliked by hundreds of thousands of viewers within 24 hours.
