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Splinter Cell: Deathwatch Trailer Puts Sam Fisher Back In Action

by admin August 25, 2025

Sam Fisher hasn’t starred in a Splinter Cell video game in over a decade, but he’s getting his comeback this fall. Netflix has released a new trailer for Splinter Cell: Deathwatch, an animated series that sends Sam on another mission, and it’s set to debut on October 14.

Michael Ironside voiced Fisher in most of the Splinter Cell games, but the leading role in this series will now be filled by Liev Schreiber. There aren’t a lot of story details in the trailer beyond Sam kicking some butt and taking names. But the trailer does pause long enough to focus on the grave of Douglas Shetland, one of Sam’s friends whom he was forced to kill when he went rogue. If the animated series is following the plot of the games, this would set the story somewhere around the Pandora Tomorrow/Chaos Theory period.

The other cast members currently confirmed for the series are Janet Varney as Anna “Grim” Grímsdóttir, Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Zinnia McKenna, and Joel Oulette as Thunder. John Wick co-creator Derek Kolstad is the head writer and producer for Deathwatch, and the animation was provided by Sun Creature Studio and Fost.

Unfortunately, this may be the only Splinter Cell adaptation on the horizon. A live-action movie was in development for several years before the project was canceled last year. The most recent adaptation was a BBC Radio play called Splinter Cell: Firewall, which featured Andonis Anthony as Fisher.

Ubisoft announced a Splinter Cell remake in 2022, but hasn’t yet set a release date. The publisher also recently added Steam achievements to Splinter Cell: Blacklist, which was released in 2013.

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August 25, 2025 0 comments

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Sam Altman and UK government minister reportedly discussed giving ChatGPT Plus to all Brits for free

by admin August 24, 2025

OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, and the UK government Technology Secretary, Peter Kyle, have discussed a deal which would see the UK’s entire population given premium access to ChatGPT, according to a Guardian report this weekend. However, the bill, which would have to be covered by the government, may have stymied any chance of the deal going official, with Guardian sources indicating ChatGPT Plus for every Brit would cost as much as £2 billion ($2.7b).

Government AI advocate

Kyle is a well-known AI advocate, with previous reports citing evidence that he has used this online tool for advice and work related questions. The minister has also characterized ChatGPT as being great for unpicking complex topics and as a “very good tutor.”

Altman and Kyle have met a number of times this year. Kyle dined with Altman in March and April, according to the source. Then, in July, the minister signed an agreement with OpenAI. This memorandum of understanding (MoU) would open up the use of OpenAI services, like ChatGPT, in the UK’s public sector. Particular mention was given to education, defense, security, and justice departments. In exchange, OpenAI would have access to a range of government data.

Prohibitive cost doesn’t add up

Bringing us up to date, sources speaking to The Guardian have shared information about talks between Altman and Kyle that took place recently in San Francisco.

While ChatGPT Plus costs $20 a month for an individual subscription, the cost for the whole populace (69.6 million by most recent estimates) should be provided at some kind of bulk discount. Multiplying the populace by a $20 fee results in a sum of around $1.4 billion. Thus, the $2.7 billion ‘proposal’ seems vastly overpriced.

That fact aside, the ChatGPT Plus for every Brit idea seems to have been a nonstarter, with sources saying “Kyle never really took the idea seriously,” writes The Guardian.

The UK is already a top five nation for paid ChatGPT use, says the source. Some in government feel AI can help UK citizens unlock economic opportunities. Sizable waves of prosperity can uplift the population as a whole, so visionary government shouldn’t be put off by investments like this. However, the jury is still out regarding the usefulness of AI, and whether it is a passing fad, or a bubble.

To underline that no ‘ChatGPT Plus for every Brit deal’ is on the way, the Guardian report ends by relaying a statement from the UK’s science and technology department, which says no such proposal or deal has been taken forward.

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August 24, 2025 0 comments

Sam Fisher stares at us through his iconic three-eyed goggles.

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Deathwatch Is Out October, And Sam Fisher Is Old

by admin August 23, 2025

Ubisoft’s long-promised animated series Splinter Cell: Deathwatch has finally been given a longer trailer and a release date. Due October 14, the Liev Schreiber-fronted anime also stars comedian Janet Varney as Anna “Grim” Grímsdóttir, and has been in the works for about four-hundred-thousand years.

OK, five years, but it really has dragged on. In the meantime we learned an entire Splinter Cell movie starring Tom Hardy was canned, while there’s been no word on other announced Ubisoft TV and movie projects like Watch_Dogs, Beyond Good & Evil, The Division, Ghost Recon, Riders Republic, a Rabbids feature, and even a Just Dance movie. So honestly, the fact that anything at all is coming to screens feels fairly miraculous.

The trailer, however, is…not what I was expecting. In 2024, Michael Ironside—who voiced title character Sam Fisher in the games—said that he was “too old” to play the part at 75, with the role handed over to 57-year-old Liev Schreiber for the anime. So it’s something of a surprise to see Sam appearing in the trailer looking like a 75-year-old man.

There’s still no clear idea what the show will actually be about, beyond it being personal to Fisher, following the death of someone called Douglas Shetland. What we do see is a lot of guns being fired, and Sam mistaking a fair few people for knife racks. Oh, and while it’s weirdly tossed away in the middle of the short teaser, at least the three-light googles appear at one point. I mean, I’m not in charge of Netflix marketing, but given most of the trailer looks like Sam Fisher: The Retirement Home Years, I’d perhaps have ended on the iconic headwear and maybe something that suggested some sort of intrigue.

The better news is the team behind the show. The creator is Derek Kolstad, responsible for Bob Odenkirk’s reinvention as an action hero in Nobody, and the writer of the first three John Wick movies. That’s some caliber, although I struggle not to imagine the scripts for John Wick are mostly “John punches a man, and then another man and then he shoots three guys, and then he gets shot in the leg but shakes it off and punches four other guys and throws knives at a guy.” Along with Kolstad is a writing team that features scribes from Shooter, and some fresh faces too.

It’s an oddly witless and plotless teaser, although given Kolstad is head writer, it seems implausible the show itself could fall that way. Right? Please? As for Fisher’s age, perhaps the show is canon to the games, given the last one—Splinter Cell: Blacklist—came out an extraordinary 12 years ago. Maybe it’s to make the people who remember playing the games feel seen.

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August 23, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

Sam Fisher Returns in Netflix’s ‘Splinter Cell: Deathwatch’ Anime

by admin August 22, 2025

Fans of stealth video games likely have a soft spot in their hearts for Splinter Cell. Ubisoft’s sub-series of stealth-action games endorsed by Tom Clancy has been MIA for over a decade, even with a remake of the original game on the horizon. After doing guest roles in other Clancy games and in Netflix’s Far Cry anime, series lead Sam Fisher is back in all his shadowy glory in Splinter Cell: Deathwatch.

Developed by John Wick alum Derek Kolstad, the animated series sees Fisher—voiced by Liev Schreiber rather than longtime game actor Michael Ironside—as a field commander for the covert Fourth Echelon unit. Like in the games, Sam is assigned to stop a threat to global security: in this case, the mission is “personal.”

Splinter Cell: Deathwatch deploys on Netflix October 14.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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August 22, 2025 0 comments

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‘Someone is going to lose a phenomenal amount of money’ says OpenAI CEO Sam Altman about unwise AI investment. ‘When bubbles happen, smart people get overexcited about a kernel of truth’

by admin August 18, 2025

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman spoke to assembled reporters at a dinner in San Francisco late last week on the topic of, you guessed it, AI, the applications of AI, and the vast sums of money moving behind the scenes to fund it. Despite being one of the most vocal advocates of the tech, Altman had some words of caution for investors jumping on the artificial intelligence train.

According to The Verge, Altman said it was “insane” that AI startups consisting of “three people and an idea” are receiving huge amounts of funding off the back of incredibly high company valuations, describing it as “not rational behaviour.”

“Someone is going to lose a phenomenal amount of money. We don’t know who, and a lot of people are going to make a phenomenal amount of money,” said Altman.

“When bubbles happen, smart people get overexcited about a kernel of truth. If you look at most of the bubbles in history, like the tech bubble, there was a real thing.” said Altman, referencing the infamous dot-com bubble of the late 1990s. “Tech was really important. The internet was a really big deal. People got overexcited.”

That being said, Altman stopped short of calling investment in AI overall a bad idea for the economy in general: “My personal belief, although I may turn out to be wrong, is that, on the whole, this would be a huge net win.”

At the same dinner, Altman confirmed that OpenAI would still be spending vast amounts of money (partially provided, presumably, by the likes of Softbank and the Dragoneer Investment Group in OpenAI’s latest $8.3 billion funding round) to keep the company at the top of the AI financial leaderbooks.

“You should expect OpenAI to spend trillions of dollars on data center construction in the not very distant future,” Altman said. “You should expect a bunch of economists to wring their hands.”

Well, it certainly appears to cost a whole lot of moolah just to keep the good ship OpenAI afloat. The company has raised staggering sums of cash over the past decade to develop and run its various AI implementations, the most famous of which being ChatGPT. Reports last year indicated that OpenAI had spent $8.5 billion on LLM training and staffing for its generative AI efforts, while other analysts have predicted it costs $700,000 a day to run ChatGPT alone.

The Information recently projected that OpenAI would be burning through $20 billion in cash flow by 2027, with the company said to be hopeful that investors like Softbank would stump up another $30 to $40 billion to continue funding its operations.

A CG render of Meta’s planned Hyperion data center, superimposed over Manhattan. (Image credit: Meta)

Still, those spending figures don’t appear to be in the trillions yet, although that estimated sum is perhaps of little surprise to those of us that keep an eye on AI data center expansion.

Given that Altman’s rival, Elon Musk, has been booting up and expanding xAI’s Colossus supercomputer with incredible speed, and with the news that Meta is expanding its data center operations at such a rate it’s currently having to house a significant portion of its racks in nearby tents, OpenAI will feel the need to keep up—and to do that it needs to spend (and raise) huge amounts of cash over the next few years.

One would assume that Altman is confident enough in his company’s efforts to place its investors on the “going to make phenomenal sums of money” side of things, but his comments should perhaps serve as a warning to those looking to jump in with both feet without correctly judging the landing. Someone has to lose in the great AI race, I suppose. And as to which companies survive, and which come to a sticky end? That remains very much an open question for now.

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August 18, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

Jony Ive and Sam Altman’s AI Gadget Won’t Be ChatGPT in Your Ears

by admin June 23, 2025

Over the weekend, OpenAI removed all promo materials related to its $6.5 billion buddy-buddy partnership with Apple design legend Jony Ive and their still unannounced AI-centric device. This wasn’t a falling out between the two titans in tech, but rather the result of something altogether stranger. The nixed webpages and videos are due to a trademark lawsuit filed by a separate startup, iyO, which is seemingly miffed about the companies names being a single letter apart.

On July 20, California federal Judge Trina L. Thompson granted a temporary restraining order against OpenAI that forced it to remove all mentions of Ive’s design company, “io.” You can still find the bromance video of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Ive—who helped bring us products like the iMac and iPhone—on YouTube through unofficial uploads. A page on OpenAI’s site that previously talked up its partnership with Ive now reads:

“This page is temporarily down due to a court order following a trademark complaint from iyO about our use of the name “io.” We don’t agree with the complaint and are reviewing our options.”

What’s the distinction between iyO Inc. and io, other than the inclusion of everybody’s favorite sometimes vowel? iyO also makes “hardware and software allowing users to do everything they currently do on a computer, phone, or tablet without using a physical interface.” Which is to say, it’s an AI device company. Jony Ive and several other ex-Apple staff founded io in 2023. Since then, it poached some big-name Apple design stars, though the company hadn’t released any real products in that time. Ive’s design firm, LoveFrom, helped design a button for a separate fashion designer.

iyO has been around since 2021, though its latest product—an in-ear headset called the iyO One—is still up for preorder. It’s a device that claims to replace apps by letting users talk in natural language to a chatbot that then computes for you. It requires an audiologist to make an impression of your ear and costs $1,000 for a version with Wi-Fi connectivity or even more for a version with LTE. The device maker claimed in its lawsuit it is manufacturing an initial batch of 20,000 units and is still looking to raise more funds. The AI device maker sued IO Products and OpenAI earlier this month and said it was seeking an immediate restraining order and injunction to stop Ive and OpenAI from using their two-letter brand name. iyO claimed it sought some investment from OpenAI and LoveFrom, though Altman told them in March that it was “working on something competitive so will respectfully pass.”

“Defendants [AKA OpenAI and Ive] have known about the existence of iyO, the iyO Marks, and the nature of iyO’s technology since at least 2022,” the AI device maker claims in its lawsuit. “Indeed, the parties had a series of meetings with representatives of OpenAI’s principal, Sam Altman, and designers from LoveFrom Inc., a design studio founded by Jony Ive, about the prospect of iyO and OpenAI working together.” For its part, OpenAI said in response to the lawsuit it had decided not to pursue any collab or funding with iyO. The makers of ChatGPT said it surveyed many existing commercial AI devices in the run-up to its May partnership announcement. Ive even went as far as to say the Rabbit R1 and Humane Ai Pin were “very poor products.”

The name “io” derives from a tech term referring to “input/output,” such as the “IO ports” like USB or HDMI you may find on a typical PC. In a statement published on the opening salvo for the lawsuit, iyO cofounder Justin Rugolo said OpenAI was trying to “trample” on the rights of his “small startup.” Rugolo also claimed he had messaged Altman saying that investors were concerned about confusion surrounding the company’s names. Rugolo complained that OpenAI had previously sued a separate artificial intelligence company, Open Artificial Intelligence, over a similar trademark claim.

At the very least, this lawsuit offers a few more slim details about what Ive and Altman have in store. In its response to iyO’s claims, OpenAI said, “io is at least a year away from offering any goods or services, and the first product it intends to offer is not an in-ear device like the one Plaintiff is offering.” OpenAI further suggested whatever spins out of io will be a “general consumer product for the mass market.”

It’s unlikely that we’ll see work stop on whatever Ive and co. are working on. There are more hearings surrounding this trademark case slated for the months ahead. The lawsuit offers yet another glimpse into the high-stakes world of AI wearable startups and just how hard it is to come up with a device that can match the versatility of an iPhone. We’ll still have to wait at least a year to see if anybody can cook up something more usable than an earpiece that lets you talk to a chatbot.

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June 23, 2025 0 comments