XDefiant was Reportedly a New Splinter Cell Game that Got Scrapped, Thanks to Ubisoft’s GaaS Ambitions

Splinter Cell fans may be upset to learn that a new game in the series was reportedly in development at Ubisoft, but has since been cancelled.

The report indicates that Ubisoft began developing a new Splinter Cell game in 2017. However, the project went through numerous changes because the company was focused on creating games as ongoing services rather than traditional releases.

The game was initially developed as XDefiant, a free-to-play first-person shooter, but it was canceled when its development studio closed on June 3, 2025.

The information comes from a Bloomberg interview with the team at AdHoc Studio, the developers of the upcoming game, Dispatch. Jason Schreier conducted the interview and shared the details.

In a recent interview, Nick Herman, co-founder of AdHoc Studio, shared that his team is developing a new Splinter Cell game. He expressed his enthusiasm for the project, noting that it had been a long time since a new game in the series was released.

Herman said he was thrilled to contribute to the project and bring it back to life, explaining that it hadn’t been active for some time. He and the team believed they could create a compelling story that fans would really enjoy.

Herman and his team spent months working on the new project, but development was cut short. Ubisoft was heavily focused on Games-as-a-Service at the time, and that shifted their priorities.

I remember hearing that after that, Ubisoft really pushed all its games to be ‘Games as a Service’ titles. The team working on this game actually tried to make that work, even coming up with some promising early ideas and prototypes for a story-driven GaaS experience.

XDefiant was Supposed to Be a New Entry to the Splinter Cell Franchise – Or Was It?

Ubisoft ultimately decided against pursuing the project. Eventually, they also lost interest in the initial Splinter Cell concept, which went through several changes before becoming XDefiant – a game that is no longer in development.

Herman recalls the times he and his team were working on the project:

The first six months of the job were really exciting – we genuinely believed we were building something special. But eventually, it became clear that the things we valued weren’t a priority anymore.

XDefiant launched in May 2024 and quickly reached 1 million unique players, becoming Ubisoft’s fastest game to achieve that milestone.

It briefly lost steam, and development stopped later that year.

Although many Splinter Cell fans will be disappointed to hear that, Mark Rubin, a former executive producer on XDefiant, says the game wasn’t created by switching focus away from the Splinter Cell series.

In his post on X (formerly Twitter), Rubin claimed:

When I joined Ubisoft, the team had already been developing a very ambitious game for about a year, but they were having trouble making it enjoyable. And just to be clear, it wasn’t a Splinter Cell title.

He clarified that although Ubisoft might have started developing a new Splinter Cell game before Rubin’s arrival, it wasn’t in development during his time with the company.

The rumored Splinter Cell game was reportedly in development in 2017, and Rubin joined Ubisoft to work on XDefiant in 2019.

Despite the challenges, fans of Splinter Cell haven’t given up hope, as a remake of the very first game is currently being developed.

2025-11-15 21:07

XDefiant was Supposed to Be a New Entry to the Splinter Cell Franchise – Or Was It?

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