"Respect the goggles": What new things to be expected from Splinter Cell remake? 

There has been no release in the Splinter Cell series since Blacklist came out back in 2013, and fans of the franchise have long waited and clamored for a revisit to the popular games. Recently there were reports of a Splinter Cell trademark being updated by Ubisoft, and now the company has officially announced that there is indeed a remake being developed.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell series redefined the stealth mechanism in video games when it first came out. Players stepped into the shoes of Sam Fisher, a highly-trained agent of a black-ops sub-division called the 'Third Echelon. Light and darkness played a huge aspect as the players planned their every move to clear out a level while being a ghost.

Splinter Cell had remained dormant for almost a decade with stray news of rumors cropping up here and there. This is the first concrete and official indication from Ubisoft that will surely delight fans of both the series and the genre.

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"We want to bring them something new": Developers confirm Splinter Cell remake from Ubisoft

With the Splinter Cell remake, players can expect the game to be visually updated, with some of the earlier design elements adjusted to player expectations and comfort and a linear rather than an open-world game like the original. The developers have confirmed that although they are building the game from the ground up, they are going to try and keep the spirit of the earlier games intact.

Matt West, one of the developers, commented:

We’re going to be straddling the line between the spirit of the old, and the comfort of the new, so that we can excite and surprise new players, but also make sure that when our returning players pick up the controller, they have that sigh of relief, saying “Ahhh, they got it.”

But of course, the developers acknowledged, a long time had passed since the last sequel came out - "enough time to miss an entire console generation." They will be experimenting and exploring what all this time means with respect to light and shadow, animation tech, gameplay, AI and audio for the game.

The official statement also makes a distinction between remake and remaster and why they are aiming for the former rather than the latter. Matt West said:

To me, a remake takes what you’d do in a remaster and goes a little bit further with it. The original Splinter Cell has a lot that was amazing and revolutionary at the time it came out, 19 years ago. The gaming public now has an even more refined palate. So, I think it kind of has to be a remake as opposed to a remaster.

The developers further stated that they thought it was important for them to preserve the "sense of mastery" that was there in the earlier games. Players observed situations, made plans, used their gadgets to outsmart the enemy, and "end up coming out on the other side with no one having realized you were even there."

The Splinter Cell remake is sure to take advantage of the new engine and the new console available at hand. The game is being remade in the Snowdrop engine which is a proven AAA engine. Peter Handrinos mentioned that:

one of its major advantages, allowing us to quickly find the modern equivalent of that core Splinter gameplay. Some other AAA engines out there do not afford this type of iteration speed, necessarily, and so this is really what gives Snowdrop an edge when bringing Splinter Cell up to speed on a modern engine.

The Splinter Cell remake is an exciting development for a series that is now nearly two decades old. It is going to introduce new players to a series that epitomized the stealth-shooter genre and reintroduce the old veterans to the masterpiece they fell in love with all those years ago.