Former XDefiant Producer Denies the Failed Arena Shooter Started as a Splinter Cell Title

Ubisoft’s XDefiant may not be the first thing to come to mind when considering the company’s live-service cancellations, but it’s certainly the most recent. Despite a relatively strong launch, the free-to-play shooter shut down last June, and executive producer Mark Rubin announced his retirement from the industry.

While it’s obvious that the publisher wanted to compete with Call of Duty, a report from Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier alleges that it arose after the cancellation of a Splinter Cell title. The project allegedly faced several changes, with the team, headed by Nick Herman (who left to co-found AdHoc Studio and work on Dispatch), attempting to adapt to a games-as-a-service model. Ultimately, it didn’t work out, and XDefiant happened instead.

However, Rubin refutes the rumor. “I can say that is not true. When I got to Ubisoft, they had been working on a game for a year that was very ambitious but was struggling to find the fun. And it was NOT a Splinter Cell game. I then canceled that one and let the team pitch any game ideas they wanted.”

Despite some “cool ones,” the team went with an arena shooter and “We found the fun quickly. So, no, we didn’t pivot off Splinter Cell to make XDefiant. Now, maybe they were thinking about working on Splinter Cell before I got there, but it was never a thing while I was there. My experience with Ubisoft was that they are very open to whatever the studio wants to do, which is great, but I do wish we could have used external engines.”

While acknowledging Schreier stating that the alleged Splinter Cell project started in 2017, while Rubin joined in 2019, the latter clarified that, “At no time when I was at Ubisoft was the San Francisco team working on Splinter Cell and that project was not canceled to make XDefiant. My beef with the article is that there was an implied action of canceling Splinter Cell to make XDefiant, and that is untrue. Maybe that wasn’t intentional, which is fine. Just trying to convey the real truth.”

Is it possible that a Splinter Cell title was in the works and cancelled for different reasons, while XDefiant started up separately and gained more resources? Perhaps. Even if there were traces of the former in the latter, it’s all moot since the title is no more.

Ubisoft has a remake of the first Splinter Cell in development, but it hasn’t offered a release date or showcased any gameplay.