Moving into 2020, there have been many new video games that have been announced for release; but, there is still no new Splinter Cell game.
Since 2013’s release of Splinter Cell: Blacklist, Ubisoft has yet to unveil or show any concrete signs of a new Splinter Cell game in production; but, this does not mean that one of the favorite franchises from Ubisoft has been forgotten.
In this article, we’ll give 5 reasons why there should be a new Splinter Cell game as well as exaggerate on personal predictions on what I believe Splinter Cell 7 should have.
1. Michael Ironside could Return to Splinter Cell 7
Ok, everybody knows the “true voice” of Sam Fisher when he is coming from the shadows to interrogate his enemies or in other cases getting up close and personal with anyone friend or foe.
The voice acting work of Sam Fisher was done by legendary actor Michael Ironside up until Splinter Cell: Conviction in 2010 before passing the character’s voice acting work over to Eric Johnson…at the time a widely unknown actor in the video game industry
Johnson (who was in his mid-30’s in Blacklist’s release in 2013) seemed to not be the logical voice match to play Sam Fisher who was in his mid-50’s (now would be in his 60’s as of 2020).
A hint from an interview from Michael Ironside in a UbiBlog interview in 2018 indicated from a quote as saying that “It’s interesting because people think it as returning to like a cottage or to a place…he’s never left, I’m SAM FISHER.”
Hearing this interview makes many including myself happy to see that Michael is not done doing Sam’s voice acting work; but, Michael Ironside is too old to do any motion capture work.
On the bright side, this does not mean that he should be ruled out as returning to voicing Sam Fisher for Splinter Cell 7
2. Continuation of Blacklist
Thinking back to the ending of Splinter Cell Blacklist and the final dialog from Majid Sadiq (as Sam was burying the Karambit knife in Sadiq’s legs) where he was quoted as saying “You think this ends with me, there are 12 nations that stand behind the Engineers…behind me. Are you ready to fight 12 wars?”
When thinking about this clue, there could be a part 2 of Blacklist except the new Splinter Cell game would potentially have a different title without “Blacklist” in the title…hint, hint!!! There is a novel named “Blacklist: Aftermath” that could tie into this 2nd part.
3. Too Many Plots Left Unturned…
Ok, let’s be real with this reason and prediction for Splinter Cell 7…there are many storylines that can be plugged into a new splinter cell game.
We’ve seen plots from stopping Information Warfare style threats in the original splinter cell game (also found in Splinter Cell Chaos Theory) to seeing Fisher become a fugitive on-the-run to finding the mole in the defunct Third Echelon organization from Splinter Cell Conviction.
What all this makes us to believe is that the Splinter Cell series can go in any direction across the world whether it is against another terrorist organization or move the plot to another close individual that “double crosses” Sam that would spice up the storyline of the game.
If it were me developing and creating a new Splinter Cell story, personally I would stay away from the whole traditional “Who is helping funding this mercenary organization?” plot.
One thing can be more than certain for Splinter Cell 7 is that Fourth Echelon may move from a mobile unit seen in Blacklist to a central location.
4. Return of “Classic” Splinter Cell Gameplay
When playing through each Splinter Cell game, it reminds me of how the Hitman games and the storyline of each game is where Agent 47 is carrying out his contracts in different places…infiltrating and information espionage in each place.
The Splinter Cell game work the same way almost except Sam Fisher is not a “Contract Killer”…he’s a ghost and apparition “that should not exist out the open” which is why all Splinter Cell games are meant to be stealth-style.
Sam Fisher hanging on the side of the Paris-Nice train with another oncoming training approaching
Ubisoft’s mistake came when replacing the traditional stealth-style gameplay with a “combat-style” of game-play for Splinter Cell: Conviction which required the player to knock-out/kill enemies versus bypassing them (this is where the decision making was thrown out the window)
Let’s just say, this outraged all gamers including myself who wanted to keep getting Splinter Cell games that should give the players the choice of how to play-through each Splinter Cell game.
While Blacklist did put the play-through decisions back into the gamers hands, it still left some critical details out of that game with the first detail being that it was still not a “full-blown stealth” game…it mixed panther and stealth together.
Reasoning for the return of all stealth game-play in the Splinter Cell series, Chaos Theory (my favorite Splinter Cell game of all time) hit the right notes with giving the players a mission success rate that pointed out for the players on the rights and wrongs of playing the game…this should be brought back for the next Splinter Cell game instead of mastery points.
In addition to a success rating, I would like to see the return of shooting lights and using the essentials of Sam’s SC-20k and 5.7 pistol be only used for the next game in reviving the old Splinter Cell days even if it’s for one last time.
5. Splinter Cell 7 could be the Send-Off…
Considering the possibility that Sam is now in his early 60’s and way beyond his prime to doing field work besides also running Fourth Echelon, Splinter Cell 7 could be the final Splinter Cell in the series.
Bringing this up, Splinter Cell will never be the same without Sam Fisher and replacing Sam Fisher with another “recruit” to do all the stealth work will only weaken the Splinter Cell series rather than carrying Sam’s legacy.
Making a final point, the DLC content shown in Ghost Recon: Wildlands and now in the Deep State DLC for Ghost Recon: Breakpoint could show the hints that Splinter Cell 7 will be the end of an era where the last “Stealth Legend” alive will retire.
This makes for the meaning “Gone but Not Forgotten” from history…