A few new Splinter Cell leaks have appeared that suggest a wildly different take on the franchise, but still a choice that may be familiar and even predictable to fans of Ubisoft’s games — or even other major stealth franchises. It’s been over eight years since the last game in the series, Splinter Cell: Blacklist, but these leaks make the new “early in development” title sound like a Splinter Cell open-world game.
What are the new Splinter Cell leaks?
The next Splinter Cell is rumored to be an open-world game, which makes it sound like the title will be coming in line with many of Ubisoft’s other properties. This is according to leaker and journalist Tom Henderson, who recently reported that Battlefield 2042 started out as a battle royale game and that GTA 6 wouldn’t release until at least 2025.
GameRevolution got in touch with Tom Henderson, who confirmed that his sources for this information included the same person who revealed the information on Skull & Bones to him earlier this year and a QA tester working on Ghost Recon: Frontline and XDefiant — which contains Splinter Cell-themed characters. These sources describe the new Splinter Cell game as “a more stealthy version of Assassin’s Creed” and “similar to how Halo Infinite has done its open-world” — not a Ubisoft game, of course, but similarly a franchise that has only just gone open-world.
Ubisoft's Splinter Cell game that is in early development is currently scoped as a… You guessed it… Open World of sorts.
"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
While there is nothing wrong with the idea of an open-world stealth game, as Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain successfully proved — and it’s the feature many previously want to see most in a new Splinter Cell — this rumor has upset a fair number of fans, who either believe that the series doesn’t need to be open-world or worry it will feel too much like every other Ubisoft game.
This sounds… not at all like splinter cell at the very least. Every game doesn’t need to be open world. Why can’t we just have tight, stealth based gameplay in a linear fashion like we did before? https://t.co/VOgwluMvEr
— Just Saiyan (@imjustsaiyan84) December 8, 2021
This would be fine if it wasn’t Ubisoft’s bread and butter currently. MGS5 was great with its open world. https://t.co/JeD631f6cE
— (̵̦̮͎̥̟͉̂͋͗̚E̖̘̙͓͐́̽r̯͕̹͓̞̳̹ì̱̳͙̖͌̀c̛ͮ́̌̌̆) (@TheEski64) December 8, 2021
While there isn’t a release date announced for the new Splinter Cell, The Game Awards 2021 is tomorrow night so the game might possibly get announced then.
