Ubisoft was, at one point not too long ago, working on a brand new Splinter Cell game. But it morphed over time to become XDefiant, according to a new report.
This comes from a Bloomberg story about AdHoc Studio, the developers of workplace superhero comedy game Dispatch, which describes their journey from Telltale Games to Ubisoft to their own independent studio. The leadership of AdHoc began working together at Telltale Games, working on Tales from the Borderlands, before Nick Herma, Dennis Lenart, and Pierre Shorette departed for Ubisoft in 2017. There, the trio worked on a new entry in the Splinter Cell franchise.
“I was so excited to be a part of this and help revitalize it, because it’s been dormant for a while,” Herman told Bloomberg. “And we thought we could tell a great story and do something the fans would love.”
However, they explain that Ubisoft was beginning to push games as a service hard across its portfolio, and Splinter Cell didn’t quite fit that mould. Over time, the Splinter Cell project transformed into what would become xDefiant, a free-to-play first-person shooter that launched to middling reviews last year and shut down just this past June, taking two entire studios with it.
The trio eventually reunited with Michael Choung, another former colleague from Telltale, to start AdHoc Studio in 2018. While working on a version of what would eventually become Dispatch, they also took on a scriptwriting co-dev gig on The Wolf Among Us 2, only to pull out of the project after writing an 800-page script due to frustrations with a lack of creative control. That project, last we heard of it, seemed similarly ill-fated.
Eventually, though, the group was able to pull together the final version of Dispatch with the support of both a publisher and a number of well-known actors thanks to casting director Linda Lamontagne. A last-minute deal with Critical Role for another game helped get them across the finish line.
As for Splinter Cell, fans remain bereft of a new game, with the last new Splinter Cell title being Blacklist from way, way back in 2013. There’s allegedly a remake of the original 2002 game in the works, but Ubisoft has been so quiet about it since 2022 that it’s hard to say whether or not it will ever fully emerge.
Dispatch, meanwhile, is excellent. We’re working on a review in progress as each episode comes out, but you can read our thoughts on the first two episodes here for now, where our reviewer says they’re “totally enthralled in this world, and I’m keen to get tangled up in Robert’s fractured personal life.”
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected].
