Splinter Cell Returns: How the Stealth Game Was Resurrected for a Lethal TV Series

Splinter Cell has always rewarded fans for demonstrating patience. The video game series that first debuted in 2002 was unusual for emphasizing stealth, hiding, and biding one’s time in an era when many games were about charging heedlessly into melees and shoot-outs. Splinter Cell was different; it emphasized cunning and was about keeping your head down, striking only when the time was just right.

Those longtime fans have now been waiting for a long time. Seven Splinter Cell games followed over the next decade, but there hasn’t been a new one since 2013. The wait continues for a playable return to the world of Sam Fisher, the black-ops agent behind the game’s signature spider-eye night-vision goggles, and developer Ubisoft has been promising a “ground-up” reboot of the games since 2022. But now, finally, there is a new TV show—the animated Splinter Cell: Deathwatch on Netflix (debuting October 14)—and its devotion to the game’s clandestine ideals should be a satisfying payoff for all the die-hard admirers still lying in wait.

“To be honest, I was part of that fan base when I played the first game,” says head writer and executive producer Derek Kolstad, best known for penning the John Wick and Nobody films. “I remember coming off of first-person shooters. You run into the room, you just start shooting. You couldn’t do that in Splinter Cell, man. You run out and start shooting and you’re dead.”

He and lead director Guillaume Dousse (Love Death + Robots) worked together to make sure the eight-episode show was marked by the same forbearance as the games. As part of this story, they shared some of their development images from the early episodes. There’s action, for sure, but expect a long fuse before the explosions of violence. “The dialogue is very sparse but efficient,” says Dousse. “That gave a lot of room to play with those silences. With animation, you can really afford to do those things. It makes it more exciting.”