Report: Ubisoft Shelved a New Splinter Cell to Go All-In on XDefiant’s Live-Service Gamble

Here is one of those development detours that makes you blink twice: the team now working on the superhero workplace comedy game 'Dispatch' once had their hands on a new 'Splinter Cell' at Ubisoft San Francisco… until it got reshaped into 'XDefiant'. That pivot, laid out in a new Bloomberg report, says a lot about how live-service ambitions can steamroll even beloved franchises.

How a new Splinter Cell turned into something else entirely

AdHoc Studio co-founder Nick Herman walked Bloomberg through the sidetrack. Before AdHoc existed, Herman and his eventual co-founders were at Telltale Games, crafting narrative hits like 'The Walking Dead' and 'Game of Thrones'. Management issues pushed that group out. In 2017, they surfaced at Ubisoft San Francisco, and their assignment was the dream gig: help bring 'Splinter Cell' back after a few quiet years.

"I was so excited to be a part of this and help revitalize it, because it’s been dormant for a while, and we thought we could tell a great story and do something the fans would love."

Then came the turn. According to Herman, Ubisoft leadership was all-in on Games-as-a-Service at the time, pushing teams to reimagine projects as live-service platforms built for long-term monetization. The company wasn’t looking to simply resurrect 'Splinter Cell' as a classic stealth thriller; the mandate skewed closer to chasing the 'Call of Duty' crowd. In that process, the 'Splinter Cell' Herman’s team was building morphed into what we know as 'XDefiant'.

The bigger picture, in one quick pass

• 2017: Former Telltale leads (now AdHoc’s founders) join Ubisoft San Francisco to work on 'Splinter Cell'.
• Ubisoft pushes a company-wide live-service strategy, aiming for something more CoD-adjacent than classic stealth.
• The 'Splinter Cell' project evolves into 'XDefiant'.
• Per Bloomberg’s account, 'XDefiant' struggled with players; the report characterizes its run as short-lived and poorly received.

Far Cry wasn’t immune either

This wasn’t a one-off. Last year, Ubisoft had two hush-hush 'Far Cry' efforts spinning: 'Project Maveric' and 'Blackbird'. The scuttlebutt pegged 'Blackbird' as 'Far Cry 7'. 'Project Maveric' was reportedly a multiplayer extraction-style concept where you’d take on AI enemies, wild animals, and other players. It grew big enough to split into its own standalone game… and then, reportedly, got canceled.

No official reason has been nailed down publicly. The safe read: either it wasn’t shaping up into something strong, or it was pulling too much focus from the next mainline 'Far Cry' (which fans have been waiting on since 2021). Either way, after 'XDefiant' faltered, the appetite for another risky live-service swing seems thin.

So, where does that leave Splinter Cell?

We’re still waiting. Herman’s comments make it sound like there really was a sincere effort to bring Sam Fisher back in a way fans would recognize, right up until the strategy winds shifted. That’s the industry twist here: a stealth icon got reshaped to fit a business model, not a story. If Ubisoft decides to circle back and make the stealth-first 'Splinter Cell' people have been asking for, there’s plenty of goodwill ready to meet it.

And yes, I’m right there with you waiting on both a proper 'Splinter Cell' and the next big 'Far Cry'.