The official trailer for Netflix and Ubisoft’s upcoming animated series, Splinter Cell: Deathwatch, gives us a much better look at this new version of Sam Fisher and lets us hear more of Liev Schreiber as the aging operative. And while I was nervous at first, I now feel confident that Schreiber can pull this off. Now let’s just hope the show itself is good, too.
On September 16, Ubisoft released the official trailer for Splinter Cell: Deathwatch. The new animated show adapts Ubisoft’s popular stealth-action video game franchise into an episodic series that will premiere on Netflix exclusively on October 14. Here’s the trailer, which features Sam Fisher doing what you expect: sneaking around, wearing cool goggles, killing people with wire, and being cranky about stuff.
We get to hear more of Liev Schreiber’s take on Sam Fisher, and while it is different than the version established by Michael Ironside, I appreciate that he still sounds like an old guy who is about to snap at any point, and if he does, God help anyone caught in his way. While I’ll miss Ironside, who voiced the character in the original games, I’m happy that Sam is in good hands. And honestly, I’m just excited to get more Splinter Cell in any form.
In this new trailer, we learn more about what this show is actually about. After a younger agent, Zinnia, gets her hands on some valuable intel, she comes to Sam Fisher for help. This brings Fisher into a mission that involves Douglas Shetland, a villainous character and former friend from the Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow and Chaos Theory games. His daughter is all grown up and running what appears to be an evil corporation of some kind. Uh oh!
Interestingly, in the trailer, we briefly see the ending of Chaos Theory, with Sam and Douglas standing with guns pointed at each other. It also seems like this series makes it canon that Sam Fisher shot Shetland. In the game, it was a choice between shooting him and not shooting him. If you didn’t pull the trigger, Shetland would shoot at Sam, forcing him to dodge Shetland’s attack before stabbing and killing him. It’s not 100% clear yet if Deathwatch is canon with the games, but if it is, I wonder what else the show will introduce into the franchise’s (surprisingly) sprawling lore.
Splinter Cell: Deathwatch is being written and produced by John Wick writer Derek Kolstad. It will be available on Netflix on October 14.
