Ubisoft releases Splinter Cell remake art: ‘We’re aiming to create a top-tier remake’

The company wants to set “a good foundation for the franchise going forward”

Ubisoft has released the first concept art for its upcoming Splinter Cell remake.

The artwork on this page was released alongside a new Splinter Cell 20th anniversary video, which is viewable below.

It features four developers working on the remake discussing the early Splinter Cell games’ lighting, visuals and player agency, as well as some details on the upcoming title.

Ubisoft officially confirmed last December that it was working on a remake of Splinter Cell, the stealth action game which was first released in 2002 as an Xbox exclusive.

The game is being rebuilt with the Snowdrop engine—which also powers The Division and is being used to build Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and Ubisoft’s upcoming Star Wars game—”to deliver new-generation visuals and gameplay, and the dynamic lighting and shadows the series is known for”.

The remake will also include a rewritten story designed to appeal to a new generation of players.

“It’s not simply a remaster,” creative director Chris Auty said in the new anniversary video. “It’s being built from the ground up. We get to do all the content from scratch, fresh and ready to go.”

Associate level design director Zavian Porter continued: “Yeah, we’re aiming to create this top-tier remake and push quality as much as possible. This should help us set a good foundation for the franchise going forward.”

Auty added: “We’re very early in production. We’re still prototyping. We don’t want to rush anything. We want to make sure that we absolutely nail the game, we actually do everything in the right way, and produce an absolutely stellar-quality experience. And we will be going dark for a little while, so we can focus on making the absolute best game possible.”

David Grivel, the former director of the Splinter Cell remake, left Ubisoft last month after 11 years to become design director at Ridgeline Games, the new EA studio led by Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto, which is focused on developing “a narrative campaign in the Battlefield universe”.

To coincide with its 20th anniversary, Ubisoft has also announced that players can now download the original Splinter Cell game free of charge from the Ubisoft Store until November 30.