OXCGN:
"It’s a simple question we all find ourselves asking about franchises across all mediums: where did they go wrong?
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, “Pablo Honey” by Radiohead, Michael Bay-directed adaptations of established stories, excellent games choosing to appeal to broader audiences; all things that can go awry in a manner nearly imperceptible.
In our modern industry, gaming truly has risen from the foam to sit beside other forms of entertainment as a more socially accepted medium, but with that change of class comes ramifications that deeply affect die-hard fans.
This series of articles will cover the direction of – and attempt to pinpoint – franchises that caused fans to roll their eyes, hang their heads in shame, and silently shed tears for their fallen virtual heroes.
Today, the spotlight shines upon the ballad of Sam Fisher, and how he was forced to appeal to a broader audience."
Ubisoft cancelled the new Splinter Cell project and shifted it into XDefiant, due to live service ambitions.
“However, over time, Ubisoft lost interest in the Splinter Cell game and shifted it into something designed to compete with Call of Duty.”
Omfg.
Wonder how many times this kinda thing has happened. The games we lost.
How can these people get it so wrong. People really want a new Splinter Cell. Is that because they want a game that plays like another game….. no, it’s because they want a Splinter Cell game that plays like… you guessed it, a splinter cell game. I really cannot comprehend how the people in this industry have become so utterly useless.
I hate GaaS so much. Like the whole model, the purpose around why it exists, and how they literally can’t f*cking make a game without it just adds to the mess of it.
Live service games aren’t for me, though I don’t hate on anyone who decides to try to develop one of these games. However, I really wish some developers would realise not all the games need to be live service.
While I loved the original Splinter Cell trilogy, and Double Agent was good too (everything after that less so), 20 years later it’s bad that Ubisoft hasn’t been able to produce a remake or decent sequel, but I’m even more confused that no other developer has been able to make a decent knock off / spiritual sequel to a series which was so beloved. Surely anyone who tried to Kickstarter a spiritual sequel would blow past their stretch targets in only a few days.
Exactly. Just completely remake the first 3 Splinter Cell games with new (better) textures, better lighting, etc etc. Redo some of the cut scenes. Sell them as a trilogy. Make money. It's that simple.
I can’t work out why they haven’t even done the cheap option of just porting the PS3 era HD Trilogy Collection to PS4, would surely be a licence to print money. While I’d love a proper remaster, especially to add HDR as that would really pop visually with the shadow / light detail, I would settle for being able to play on a modern system (I have a PS3 but the system itself is so sluggish, and the Sixaxis controller so poor, I would always choose a zippy modern port with a PS5 controller).
I also hate when a small but super talented studio gambles their livelyhood on a GAAA totle like remedy with firebreak and mucurysteam with spacelords, or united front with triad wars
If it is a success then I imagine those small companies are now huge companies, but so rare it will happen. What I don’t get is artistically for the development team, once they launch a live service game and it beats the odds to become successful, those devs now are purely focused on how to get more from their players, maintain engagement and find a way to slot in brand partnerships. Have to imagine they would hope the success would mean they have more freedom in future projects, instead they become more creatively unfulfilled than ever
The animated show based on the hit game series has been given a season two order from Netflix.
This show was good and i hope it shows Ubi that their still is a market for SplinterCell.
The new trailer for the game based series has been released.
.................... Man, I thought it was a game. How can Ubisoft sit on this franchise for so long????
I think they are hoping this Jumpstart the interest in the franchise and brings new people to the game.
Ubisoft has a movie and television division and they haveban Assassin’s Creed project and others coming to hopefully increase the audiences for their franchises.
They've been working on a remake for 5 years, and no updates since they said they're working on it. This and the Tomb Raider game that had a "sort of announcement with one concept art that it's in UE5" back in 2020 are really just taking longer than it needs to. Give us concept art or something. I enjoyed when devs like Bungie would give community updates on their projects and keep the community in the loop even if it's very vague like saying "our buddy Dave here is testing out this gun on this yet to be revealed monster in this secret location that we're working on".
I really think that these days devs will struggle to sell games based on pure stealth. I often hear complaints about 'stealth' sections of games, and that isn't even a whole game.
Yet making a stealth franchise all action oriented makes the game almost industinguishable from all the others.
The answer is what MGS4 did. You could try and play it COD style, but there were open enough environments to find other sneakier ways around it and not die so much as a reward.
Conviction didn't offer as much opportunity for choice of approach.
A game like Thief 4 or Hitman would suffer if action became the main focus over sneaking, taking out lighting, stealth kills, and disguise.
very nice article! and completely agree with everything you wrote.
I wrote a similar piece, lol.
http://www.digitalvideogame...
never liked any of the Splinter Cell or Tom Clancy's games.