This is from a broader article from jason schreier about Dispatch and the story behind its development.
In early 2017, they left Telltale to take jobs at the San Francisco office of the French video-game giant Ubisoft, where they were tapped to work on a new project that until now has remained a secret.
Herman and his team were developing a new entry in the beloved stealth-action Splinter Cell franchise, he told me. “I was so excited to be a part of this and help revitalize it, because it’s been dormant for a while,” Herman said. “And we thought we could tell a great story and do something the fans would love.”
They worked on the project for a few months before they got disrupted by executive whims. Ubisoft was at the time growing obsessed with games as a service (GAAS), or games that can be monetized for months or years after they are released, and the company began pressuring all of its projects to follow that route. “We tried,” said Herman. “Let’s make a narrative GAAS game. We were trying to make that make sense, and a lot of cool prototypes were made.”
But nothing stuck. Over time, it became clear that Ubisoft had lost interest in their Splinter Cell game as the studio began talking about chasing Call of Duty. The project evolved several times and would eventually morph into xDefiant, an ill-fated shooter that was shut down a year after it came out.
“It was exciting to go to work for the first six months because we thought we were going to be able to make something really great,” Herman said. “And then you realize that all of the things you care about, they don’t anymore. It’s a common thing in games.”
Remember this story the next time you hear a company say "we don't force our devs to work on live service".