E3 2019: Ubisoft predictions, rumors and expectations

What we might see: A New Splinter Cell game

This is such a hard one to call, but I’m saying its more likely than not. The Splinter Cell franchise has been pretty much dead for years, the last game (Splinter Cell: Blacklist) appearing on the previous generation of consoles.

The series has a dedicated fanbase that has been making it loud and clear that they want to see Sam Fisher back doing stealth missions and snapping necks from behind in a new entry in the series. Ubisoft has been pretty mum on even saying if a new game is ever happening.

Then we had those tweets from Julian Gerighty, Ubisoft Creative Director, claiming that he had been working on a new game in the Splinter Cell series. It certainly seemed odd to just randomly tweet that out without some official announcement. Ubisoft claimed that Gerighty was “joking,” but it’s a bizarre joke to suddenly announce a highly hoped for a new game in a series on Twitter and then have those hopes entirely dashed by the publisher of that series.

I’m leaning towards that we will see a new Splinter Cell game at E3 2019, but it might still be a little early; almost certainly not something that will be coming out in 2019. It could possibly be a cross-gen title, as many titles coming out in 2020 and for a little beyond are rumored to be just that.

What does a new Splinter Cell game need to be in this day and age though? Does it need to be a significant re-imagining of the series as we’ve seen with more than a few long-running franchises this generation? The only modern comparison I can think of that’s a stealth-action title is Hitman, and I don’t think anyone wants Splinter Cell to simply ape Hitman, it should be its spin on the stealth genre. Either way, I think we’ll see Sam Fisher show up during Ubisoft’s E3 2019 presentation.