Bottom line: Ubisoft has canceled development on Splinter Cell VR, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Frontline and two other unannounced games. Based on feedback from gamers, it's unlikely that many tears will be shed over the loss of the Ghost Recon title.
A virtual reality game based on Splinter Cell was announced during a Facebook Connect event in September 2020. The game was being led by Ubisoft's Red Storm Entertainment studio and was set to be an Oculus VR exclusive.
Ghost Recon Frontline was announced last October as a free-to-play massively multiplayer online battle royale shooter in the same vein as Call of Duty: Warzone. Ubisoft intended to launch the title on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, PC and on Amazon Luna and Google Stadia streaming services.
A trailer for the game reportedly garnered a ton of dislikes but since Google started hiding public dislike counts shortly after its debut, we have no way of knowing how many dislikes it has received to date. The comments section is still active, however, and it doesn't take long to gauge the room and realize that few were actually looking forward to this game.
Ubisoft Chief Financial Officer Frederick Duguet announced the cancellations during the company's recent earnings call with investors, adding that they plan to stabilize headcounts by the end of fiscal 2023 to match levels at the end of fiscal 2022. Ubisoft will also focus even more on its biggest development opportunities, hence the cancellations.
Ubisoft also said Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora will now be released in 2023-24, as will another unannounced title. The new Avatar game was first announced back in 2017 and was later scheduled for release in 2022.
The next game in the Assassin's Creed franchise, meanwhile, will be revealed in September.