Update: A Ubisoft rep issued the following statement in response to our inquiry:

"Julian was obviously joking as Julian likes to do. It looks like our creative directors are having fun right now. We do not have any announcements to make at this time."

I don't actually know what Julian likes to do, but I do know that after months of making noises about Splinter Cell, and with E3 less than a month away, a Ubisoft creative director stating flat-out that he's working on a new Splinter Cell if that's not actually the case is not so much a funny gag as just a really bad idea. Fans very clearly want a new game in the series. Mocking that desire is a bad look all around.

Gerighty changed his Twitter background and icon to Splinter Cell shortly after the tweet that got the ball rolling, but has since changed it back to The Division 2. The tweets themselves are still up, however. We'll keep an eye on the situation and let you know where it goes from here.

Original story:

Rumors of a new Splinter Cell have been kicking around for ages: In 2018 Ubisoft chief creative officer Serge Hascoet said the company was "fighting for resources" to make a new game in the series, and in April of this year CEO Yves Guillemot said that the company is "taking care of the brand," and that fans would, eventually, "see something."

Today, we saw this:

Working on the next #SplinterCell with @danhaynow and @romcamor in #Lyon.Can’t wait for #E3.Crossover with #TheCrew2 with @_fergus_ :)Only missing @GhostRecon and @Rainbow6Game - but on their way.#FarCry#ForHonor #TheDivision2 #RainbowSixSiege #GhostRecon pic.twitter.com/oiwMPTny9YMay 14, 2019

Julian Gerighty is a creative director at Ubisoft, which is to say that he's a man in a position to know when something is being developed. Lending even more weight to this bizarrely out-of-nowhere "Uh, he just tweeted it out" moment, Ubisoft Montreal creative director Dan Hay retweeted it. I guess that's pretty much that.

The tweet has been up for 30 minutes, which is well beyond the "delete this immediately or you're fired" window, so I really have no idea what to make of it. That a new Splinter Cell is in the works doesn't come as a surprise—I thought the Jon Bernthal appearance in Ghost Recon: Wildlands might lead into it—but to see it blurted out like this is, well, it's just really weird.

About a half-hour after Gerighty posted his initial "making a new Splinter Cell" tweet, he followed up with this:

Ok - plz don’t retweet. I may be in trouble.May 14, 2019

He also changed his Twitter background image and icon from The Division 2 to Splinter Cell.