It’s kinda funny that a French company full of handsy perverts ended up with the IP license for the most popular writer of American military and spycraft fiction. Tom Clancy, likely realizing what he had on his hands, formed Red Storm Entertainment (named after Red Storm Rising, one of this most well-known novels), which was eventually acquired by Ubisoft in the year 2000. I don’t have an opinion on how things have progressed since then, but it’s hard not to wonder how Clancy would have been met by the video game industry in these later years, considering his politics and his subject matter.
A staunch conservative in the old sense, and a firm believer in American military power, Clancy would no doubt be an odd duck in today’s modern video game publishing world. On the other hand, maybe one of his grandkids would have been trans and CNN could get him on TV to say that Black Lives Matter. You never really know what people will do once the pressure is on.
Either way, he’s dead. But his name lives on (literally) in the vast array of video games now produced, if not under his eye, then under his personal brand. The Tom Clancy personal brand is a real thing and is recognized immediately for gritty, realistic military simulations where a single bullet can be lethal, where planning is important, and where you spend too much money to get celebrity voice actors for your over-monetized and disappointing shooter game, which should have been a fucking slam dunk.
Anyway, Ubisoft has clearly been dealing with issues lately, and when a company is in such a position — that is, gaining in a very short time the reputation of being a company full of arrogant maniacs and sex pests — the first instinct is to clean house and make a commitment to “diversity and inclusion.” The second thing to do is distract everyone with a game announcement, usually a well-known and highly-regarded franchise that recalls fond memories of when your company wasn’t making the same tired game over and over again.
But to show people that you Really Have Changed! you’re gonna need to do something big. You’re gonna have to come out swinging, really take a whack at this thing. You’re gonna have to be bold, go in a different direction. Tom Clancy? Who is he? No my friend, you’ve only got one choice here. You’re gonna have to subvert expectations.
So of course, I read the other day that the new Splinter Cell would be updated for a new generation. Okay.
The last game in this franchise came out in 2013. That’s nearly a decade, an eternity in video games. Why make a special fuss about updating the game for a new generation? Wouldn’t you do this naturally? If we were to imagine Sam Fisher’s areas of concern in 2023, it goes without saying that we would not be dropped into the video game equivalent of Benghazi. Right? Of course the game is going to be “updated.” What a stupid thing to say.
So why lead with such an obvious and unexciting promise? Especially when you then claim that the “themes” and “spirit” from the original will still be there?
If you’re reading this shitty blog, you know the answer to this question: because they’re about to fuck up the franchise. So how much do you wanna bet that the new Splinter Cell has at least one of the following:
A trans side kick who lets you know almost immediately that she (it will be a she) is trans.
America is the real evil empire!
Sam Fisher has a kid and his kid is gay.
Something about racism
Something about the police state (even though the current police state is controlled by leftists)
At least one reference to January 6th.
At least 3 references to Donald Trump.
I hope I’m wrong, I hope the next Splinter Cell is not written by a bi/queer poly Yale MFA graduate whose dad worked for the CIA and now he hates the intelligence services or whatever. Who knows. Video games fucking suck.