Splinter Cell Remake Developer Wants the Entire Game to Support a Non-Lethal Playstyle

In a recent video celebrating Splinter Cell’s 20th anniversary, Ubisoft shared some concept art for the upcoming Splinter Cell Remake. While still early in production – with the team wanting to “absolutely nail the game” – it wants to ensure that the entire game is playable without killing any enemies.

Creative director Chris Auty said, “I think the sense of Mastery, also if we’re talking about perfectionism in the game, is important. We even would like for the Remake to take that a step further. We would like to make sure that the entire game is playable, from beginning to end, without a single kill, if at all possible. So that’s important for us as well.”

The original release was also very strict when it came to mistakes. If you left a body visible and went to another area, an alarm would automatically trigger. Triggering it three times would cause the mission to fail. The remake is looking to “scale that back a bit,” as per senior game designer Andy Schmoll.

“We want to give the player a few more opportunities to de-escalate some situations. Stealth is an extremely important pillar for us, and we aim to incorporate modern design philosophies, improving the minute-to-minute stealth gameplay that was so special in the original.”

Auty added on to this: “So Sam, being the ultimate covert field agent, he has an enormous array of tools and abilities, gadgets, and movements at his disposal. And with all of those, they aim to create these moments of tension. You know there’s an enemy nearby. You know that there’s a threat coming around the corner.

“And he has these tools in his toolbox that he can use to react to that stuff in a split second. If an enemy is coming around the corner that you didn’t spot in time, he can do these split jumps, get up high, and kind of avoid contact. He can plan by looking under doorways and using these tools to understand where the threats and that sort of thing are. We want to create these moments of tension that the player will need to use those tools and gadgets to react, too.”

The Splinter Cell Remake is being developed on Snowdrop Engine and doesn’t have a release window. In terms of changes, a scriptwriter listing indicated that Ubisoft Toronto was “rewriting and updating the story for a modern-day audience.” It’s looking to keep the “spirit and themes” of the original alive, but also appeal to “a new audience of Splinter Cell fans.” Stay tuned for more details updates on the title in the future.