Reports circulated through the industry claiming that Ubisoft’s cancelled rival to Call of Duty had supposedly been preceded by work on a new Splinter Cell title. The account sounded serious and gave the impression that the publisher was intent on reproducing Call of Duty’s success at any cost.
The outcome proved harsh for the company: despite early interest, XDefiant was shut down and the team disbanded. That raised a clear question — why risk Sam Fisher’s legacy for a project like this?
XDefiant producer Mark Rubin said the rumor was baseless. He insisted the story was entirely fabricated and that Ubisoft was not developing Splinter Cell at that time. The team had been focused on an entirely different, large-scale and ambitious project that they ultimately did not find “fun.” Details remain undisclosed, but Rubin confirmed it had nothing to do with the series Bloomberg mentioned.
Rubin added that after that prototype was cancelled he encouraged the team to pitch new game ideas. Several concepts were proposed, but their scope and complexity proved excessive. The studio therefore settled on an arena shooter — and there they quickly discovered a workable gameplay formula. He stressed that XDefiant was never intended as a replacement for Splinter Cell, and any suggestion otherwise before his arrival was purely speculative. He also noted that Ubisoft generally supports studios’ creative decisions, though he personally missed the flexibility to use external engines.
Source: iXBT.games