They’re two franchises that are used to hiding in the shadows, but this time they’ll be hiding within a virtual reality headset – Ubisoft has confirmed that new Splinter Cell and Assassin’s Creed games are on the way, and that they’re headed exclusively to Facebook’s Oculus VR headsets.
While we’re used to Assassin’s Creed instalments coming out almost annually, this will be music to the ears of Splinter Cell fans, who haven’t had a new title in the series since 2013’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist, more than seven years ago.
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However, the fact that both are VR exclusives (and exclusive to Oculus and PC VR owners, leaving PSVR owners in the cold) might come as a blow to console gamers, especially those looking for a traditional Splinter Cell experience on the forthcoming Xbox Series X and PS5 hardware.
The new games were revealed during the Facebook Connect virtual event on September 16, where the company also revealed the brand-new Oculus Quest 2 headset, and the news that Oculus would no longer be making PC-only virtual reality headsets like the Rift and Rift S.
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More to come
At present, little is known about the games, but we can make some guesses based on the artwork revealed so far. The Assassin’s Creed half of the image above shows many fan-favorite assassin’s from across the franchise’s history, suggesting we may get to jump across historical eras and work alongside them – or step into their shoes. The Splinter Cell artwork seems even more implicit in what it suggests – with protagonist Sam Fisher’s signature night vision goggles in hand, it’d be a missed opportunity not to see a target from his green-glowing point of view.
The games are being made “from the ground up” for VR, Ubisoft tells us, with development headed up by Ubisoft’s Red Storm, in collaboration with Ubisoft Reflections, Ubisoft Dusseldorf and Ubisoft Mumbai.
There’s no word yet on release date, but we’ll keep you posted as soon as we have them.
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