Either Sam Fisher has hacked into Amazon’s mainframe and outed the existence of his next big game, or someone at the online distributor’s Canadian office is in big trouble. Not only did a listing for "Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell 2018" appear on the website, but the details suggest the game will be officially revealed at this year’s E3 convention.
The listing has since been taken down, but a Redditor spotted the post and got the internet talking before Ubisoft could begin damage control, though it is still possible that this was just a speculative placeholder listing from Amazon, so it can't be counted as definitive confirmation of the game’s existence just yet.
Splinter Cell 2018? https://t.co/kMtDX3G3pr(Ubisoft's listing on Amazon Canada) pic.twitter.com/QvLlq0TmZnMarch 13, 2018
That said, previous information about the future of Splinter Cell does seem to corroborate with the theory that Ubisoft will be releasing a new installment in the stealth-action franchise this year.
At E3 2017, Ubisoft Montreal's CEO Yannis Mallat teased a Splinter Cell revival in the near future, while reports as far back as 2016 suggested Michael Ironside - Sam Fisher’s voice actor - was back at Ubisoft to work on an undisclosed project.
The last Splinter Cell game was 2013’s Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Blacklist, which released for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC at the tail end of that generation’s lifespan. That means a new Splinter Cell would mark the first time the franchise hits the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, and it’ll be interesting to see how Ubisoft drags Sam Fisher into the new generation for a more modern stealth-action experience.
That said, the only platform specified by Amazon was PC, so a console version remains unconfirmed for now, though the likelihood is high, with even a Switch port seeming somewhat plausible given the publisher’s close working relationship with Nintendo.
Ubisoft has also implied that a new Assassin’s Creed game won’t be out this year, so a Splinter Cell sequel would be the ideal title to fill that gap, making a Fall release date all the more probable. If that listing is to be believed, the return of Sam Fisher is only a few more months away...
