Splinter Cell Animated Series Is Canonical To The Games, For The Most Part

Ubisoft has confirmed that the new Netflix animated series "Splinter Cell: Deathwatch" is largely canonical to the Splinter Cell video game series. While the series respects the source material, some minor creative liberties have been taken to adapt it for television. The series references the death of Douglas Shetland, a character from the Pandora Tomorrow and Chaos Theory games, and explores the aftermath of his death, particularly the emergence of his daughter, Diana Shetland, as the CEO of Xanadu, a corporation that is now Sam Fisher's (Liev Schreiber) latest enemy. The showrunner, John Wick creator Derek Kolstad, has said that the team had to "rip the spine out of the source material" while keeping the "brain and the heart" to create something that works for the TV audience. The series is set to debut on Netflix on October 14, and there is also a Splinter Cell remake in development, though updates on that project have been limited since its announcement in 2022.