Ubisoft’s Lost Splinter Cell Revival and the Road That Led to xDefiant
What’s been coming out recently about Ubisoft is something that honestly sounds like a plot twist in the studio’s own history—because according to former developers, a new Splinter Cell game was actually being built before it was reshaped, redirected, and ultimately transformed into the live-service shooter xDefiant , a project that later shut down only a year after launch. And the story behind that transformation says a lot about how the chase for “live-service hits” has reshaped big studios over the last decade.
The original idea, as shared by former Telltale developers Nick Herman, Dennis Lenart, and Pierre Shorette, was to revive Splinter Cell in a meaningful, story-driven way. These were devs who’d joined Ubisoft in 2017 with strong storytelling backgrounds, fresh off successes like Tales from the Borderlands
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Eventually, the Splinter Cell project morphed into what would become xDefiant , a fast-paced arena shooter that spent years in playtesting before launching in 2024. It attracted millions of players but lasted only about a year before being shut down. To the developers who originally joined to tell a character-driven story, it felt like watching the heart of their project be replaced by a corporate mandate.
On the other side, Mark Rubin—xDefiant’s director—has disputed parts of this story. According to him, Ubisoft was not actively developing a Splinter Cell game when he arrived. Instead, he says the project he stepped into was entirely different, already struggling, and definitely not linked to Sam Fisher’s world. He claims he cancelled that initial attempt and opened the door for the team to pitch new ideas, eventually settling on a straightforward arena shooter. So while the accounts differ, the sense of a studio caught between creative ambition and shifting corporate direction still remains.
Meanwhile, the developers who left Ubisoft to form AdHoc Studios Dispatch , sold a million copies in just ten days—clear evidence that players still value story-focused experiences. And ironically, while xDefiant closed with over 15 million players, its shutdown highlights how unstable the live-service chase can be.
Ubisoft does still have a Splinter Cell remake in development, but this whole saga shows how easily even beloved franchises can be pulled off-course when big publishing trends take over.
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