Ubisoft surprise-revives its neglected Splinter Cell middle child on Steam, puts it on sale, then slaps a Uplay requirement on it so you don't get too excited

(Image credit: Ubisoft (Bluesky))

In what I've chosen to interpret as a reward for all my good deeds on Earth, Ubisoft has inexplicably revived the neglected middle child of the Splinter Cell series (which is, itself, the neglected child of Ubisoft's franchise line-up). Pandora Tomorrow is back, baby: it's been wordlessly listed on Steam at a 40% discount (and even cheaper on Ubisoft Connect) without so much as a how'd-you-do. It is officially Pandora Today.

Although every other mainline Splinter Cell game has been easy to pick up on PC digital storefronts for years, Pandora Tomorrow has always been strangely and sadly absent from the Ubi digital lineup. The corp wasn't just playing favourites—it wasn't available on Ubisoft Connect (née Uplay) either.

That may be because Pandora Tomorrow's PC version was a bit busted (which is saying something for this series on PC: Double Agent will subject you to a gamut of errors and crashes if you dare try to run it). The game would run rife with graphical errors on more recent GPUs, and it's possible Ubi felt it was more trouble than it was worth to fix it up before selling it. Or someone just dropped the USB stick with it on behind a sofa somewhere in Paris. I'd believe either.

The good news is: early reviews on the Steam version suggest the studio has, in fact, fixed the problems with shadow rendering that plagued its pre-digital versions.

The less-good news is that's all you can really expect in the way of updates and fixes. This ain't Pandora Tomorrow: Remastered—this is the game that originally came out on the OG Xbox in all its 4:3 glory. Actually-bad news: Ubisoft has smacked a Uplay requirement on the game, even if you get it on Steam, just to keep you in your place.

Sam Fisher sneaks up on a cop. — (Image credit: Ubisoft)

But hey, insofar as the game's un-remasteredness is concerned, that's the beauty of PC gaming, and there already exist guides and fanpatches to get Pandora Tomorrow running nicely at modern resolutions all over the place. It's good to have Sam's complete mainline adventures all in my Steam library. We can finally stop using that one weird ModDB download. Yes, you know the one.

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One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.

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