In 2002, Ubisoft released the original Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell for the original Xbox console with the tagline ‘Stealth Action Redefined.’ A landmark release that created a PC gaming franchise focused on stealth, espionage, and tactical gameplay – and has been dormant for over a decade: the last Splinter Cell game, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist, released in 2013.
4Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell (2022) with ray-tracing (left) versus the original baked lighting (right), image credit: YouTube/Skurtyyskirts.
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Although Ubisoft announced in 2021 that it was working on a full remake of the original game, using the Snowdrop engine that powers The Division, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, and Star Wars Outlaws, that hasn’t stopped people from giving the game an RTX Remix makeover.
NVIDIA’s RTX Remix tools allow modders to update almost any classic PC game with full path-traced lighting, AI-powered texture upscaling, DLSS, and Frame Generation support, and the ability to replace models with updated versions. Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell RTX from modder Skurtyyskirts is one of the many impressive RTX Remix mods currently in development. If you’re a fan of Sam Fisher’s exploits and funky night vision goggles, you’ll want to check this out.
4Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell (2022) with ray-tracing (left) versus the original baked lighting (right), image credit: YouTube/Skurtyyskirts.
Skurtyyskirts notes that they’re still messing around with the “color of the lights and their intensity,” but even in this unfinished state, Splinter Cell with full ray tracing looks impressive. As a steal action game set in environments with minimal or controlled lighting, it might sound like the perfect ‘old game’ to benefit from RTX Remix – but that’s not the case.
Ray tracing takes the 2002 original and makes it look more like a modern release or remaster, but Splinter Cell has a “light meter” mechanic for visibility. Any path-tracing or ray-tracing must match the original release’s baked lighting. “Getting the path traced lighting to match the original baked lighting style to adhere to the detection meter is going to be a challenge,” Skurtyyskirts writes in response to this question in the comments. “Almost everything would have to be fine-tuned and play-tested. For now, it’s all proof of concept.”
Still, we’d love to see this project reach the point where there is a fully playable RTX-powered level.