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Ubisoft used to call the series Rainbow Six, but 
when the cool new logo was created, the marketing 
team decided to change the name to Rainbow 6 


THE RETURN TO DUTY 

Given the state of the shooter market, Rainbow Six has a 
lot of catching up to do. Though the popular franchise has 
always fared well critically, it's been three years since we 
last saw it in action. Over that time period, the popularity of 
the genre has exploded to the point that one game, Call of 
Duty: Black Ops, has sold as many copies (23 million) as the 
entirety of the Rainbow Six series. 

Whereas once Rainbow Six ranked among the best shoot- 
ers in both story campaign and multiplayer, Call of Duty is 
now the gold standard. Battlefield’s successful conversion 
froma PC exclusive to a multi-console property gives war 
buffs another elite option as well. So how do you recapture 
mind share from these highly successful properties? 

To honor the Rainbow Six legacy and return the franchise 
to prominence, the development team at Ubisoft Montreal 
knows it needs to make a splash. Picking up the story 


where it left off in Rainbow Six Vegas 2 was a non-starter. 
“The story is particularly important to us this time,” admits 
Creative director David Sears. “We know from post-launch 
consumer data that most people couldn’t remember who 
the characters were, why they were there, and why they 
were doing the things they were doing, or even what the 
story was all about.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement. 

When Sears joined the team two years ago, the United 
States was still in the throes of its biggest recession since 
the Great Depression (some argue we're still in the reces- 
sion now). The anger in the nation was palpable, and Sears 
certainly identified with it, having lost the entirety of his 401k 
in two days during the economic collapse. In conducting 
their story research and reading up on the latest Tom Clancy 
books, Sears and his team realized there was no need to 
look outside our nation’s borders for the next big threat 
facing the nation and Team Rainbow. 


Creative director David Sears and narrative director Richard Rouse worked with 
Canadian filmmaker Erik Canuel and Hollywood screenwniters to storyboard 
the entire Rainbow 6 Patriots narrative and nail the pacing of the plot 


“We knew we had to have a story this time that’s very 
ausible, very relevant, and that touches on the current 
2rs of U.S. citizens,” Sears says. 
ij * properly coordinated, the emerging rage-fueled para- 

tary groups angered over the direction of the coun- 
» could cause irreparable damage to our political and 
ancial foundations. 

rtunately there hasn't been a single leader to galvanize, 
chestrate, and mobilize all these groups who have all this 
al energy and are so dissatisfied and angry,” Sears 
For the sake of the next Rainbow Six story, however, 
created him. 

ir enemies are inspired by these paramilitary groups, 
tical radicals who we see all over YouTube, and former 
tary men and women who have valiantly served their 
suntry but then return home and feel disenfranchised and 
gotten,” he says. “They don’t return as heroes, and they 


feel like they have been neglected. These are the people 
who would join a movement like our terrorist group.” 

This new collective of militias, known as the True Patriots, 
is led by a charismatic figurehead named Tredway, who has 
seen government treachery firsthand and has information 
that proves it lies to its people. 

“Ue would like to overthrow the government, but he is 


raditionally, Rainbow Six games involve a 
sense of “adventure tourism,” with high stakes 
missions that take players to exotic locations 
around the globe they normally wouldn’t 
go. Creative director David Sears assures us that just 
because Patriots takes places predominately in the 
United States, that doesn’t mean the settings will be 
boring or conventional. 

“| always point to the Salton Sea in the United 
States,” he says. “It’s a spectacular desert, a spectacu- 
lar urban wasteland that’s been largely forgotten by the 
Americans who created it in the ‘60s. My point is, we 
don’t have to go to Afghanistan or Iraq to have a spec- 
tacular desert. Most of this geography and topography 
is available right here in North America.” 

Though 80 percent of the game is set in iconic loca- 
tions like Pebble Beach, California and New York City, 
Sears says the remaining 20 percent takes players 
beyond the national borders to places like the Bering 
Strait and Poti, Georgia, a coastal city on the Black Sea. 


as 
ra 


really smart,” Sears says. “He knows that a movement 
begun today will not necessarily result in a conclusive and 
lasting change tomorrow. What makes him particularly dan- 
gerous is that he is willing to martyr himself for this cause. 
By becoming a martyr, he firmly believes that his actions 
will reverberate throughout future history so that people will 
look at him as a founding father of a new country in which 
people have embraced the civil liberties that are granted to 
them in the Constitution.” 

The main targets of Tredway’s ire are the government and 
financial institutions, which he sees colluding at the detri- 
ment of the common man. To overthrow the corrupt leaders 
of the nation, he aspires to behead corporate America. 

Stopping Tredway won’t be easy, because the True 
Patriots don't operate like your traditional terrorist organiza- 
tion. Unlike the foreign threats from overseas, Tredway has a 
standing army of trained insurgents who look, act, and talk 
just like everyone else in America. Rather than take up arms 
against the military directly, the Patriots conduct strategic 
strikes when an opportunity arises, then disappear back into 
everyday society. As this implies, it is a very agile organiza- 
tion. By simply sending a text message, Tredway can have 
a flash mob of insurgency fighters anywhere in the United 
States at almost any time. 


“Why can’t a game be smarter? Why can’t a game embrace issues? 
We're not coming down with any kind of ruling or judgment about | 
any of this. We're letting people talk a ongst themselves.” 
David Sears 


_ But the True Patriots aren't just a hard-to-catch enemy. 
For the first time in the series, you don’t just play from the 
perspective of the elite Team Rainbow outfit. Players also 
take the role of a True Patriot. Shifting perspective to give 
readers or viewers insight into the motivations and beliefs of 
multiple sides of the story is a common technique used in 
novels and films, but is rarely seen in video games. 

“We very often see terrorists as a caricature of human- 
ity,” Sears explains, “but they’re really people. Even if we 
completely disagree with their ideology — and certainly we 
disagree with the terrorist actions they are taking. No one 
wants to be shot or blown up.” 

Unlike the controversial “No Russian” level in Call of Duty: 
Modern Warfare 2, a lurid mission where players acted 
as an undercover CIA agent during an airport massacre, 
Ubisoft Montreal isn’t just interested in generating shock 
value. The team wants to create context around these True 
Patriot members to give you insight into what led them to 
join this group. 

“These people all have mothers,” Sears says. “They want 
to be loved on some level, so we're actually stepping back 
and letting you get to know some of these people. It’s very 
important to understand why they are doing the things they 
do, so we're taking the time to present it in a thoughtful way 
so that by the end of the game you've experienced a terror- 
ist event from multiple angles. 

“You'll understand better what it’s like to be a terrorist, 
and you'll understand better what it’s like to be a civilian in a 
terrorist event. That gives you a greater appreciation for the 
things that Rainbow does, particularly since when you know 


all these people and you've had time to connect with them 
and you're asked as Rainbow to make these hard ethical 
decisions, it’s more powerful. It makes you think.” 


The New Face Of Team Rainbow 

Since we last saw Team Rainbow, the organization has 
undergone a radical transformation. Just as Tom Clancy's 
novels have evolved as the world and terrorist threats 
change, the international strike team has adapted by 
transforming its personnel and tactics. Old-school counter- 
terrorism isn’t an effective deterrent anymore, So new oper- 
ational guidelines have been put in place. The driving force 
of this new direction is Zulu squad leader James Wolfe, a 
former Navy SEAL who fervently believes in doing whatever 
it takes to thwart the True Patriots. 

“He sees that the True Patriots are operating by a new set 
of rules — it’s not about making demands for something or 
taking a bunch of hostages and holding them for a while. 
It's about striking and disappearing again,” says narrative 
director Richard Rouse. “James Wolfe realizes that to stop 
these guys he’s going to have to push Rainbow farther than 
they've ever had to go before and make some really tough 
choices to take these guys down.” 

“He knows that if he doesn’t eliminate the True Patriots’ 
leader swiftly, the results to the United States could be 
catastrophic and long-lasting,” Sears adds. “In order to do 
this, he’s willing to take ethical shortcuts. For the first time 
ever, Rainbow is going to show up at the site of a terrorist 
event before the police show up and cordon off the hotel 
with yellow tape.” 

Players take the role of Echo squad’s leader, a new 
member of Team Rainbow who looks up to Wolfe like a 
father figure. But once you are in the field, you have the 


Like with id Software's Rage, Ubisoft Montreal wants the combat to feel more 
visceral, so it’s taking measures to make sure different animations play when 


you shoot an enemy in the shoulder, leg, back, or front. The strength of the 


weapon impact on AI enemies will also be taken into account 


choice whether to adopt Wolfe's 
another approach. 

In previous games, allowing a civilian to die was ga’ 
over. Now you're not exempt from tough situational de 
sions. Do you kill one civilian now and potentially spare hu 
dreds of lives, or is the lone human life too critical to lo 
even if it means thousands of others may meet their untim 
deaths down the road? In Patriots, you make the call. 


tactics or go Ww 


continued on page 


hough we haven’t seen a new Rainbow Six game since 2008, Ubisoft Montreal is dead 

set on recapturing the series’ past status as a top-tier multiplayer shooter. A lot has hap- 

pened since its last appearance — namely Call of Duty became the most popular online 

shooter of all time — but rather than be discouraged in the face of such steep competi- 
tion, the development team is encouraged by the growing popularity of the genre as a whole. 

“The good news is that there are many more people now playing multiplayer than there used 
to be,” says Rainbow 6 Patriots lead multiplayer designer Simon Larouche. Even though Rainbow 
Six’s strategic, squad-based action is different from the more frenetic pace of a Halo or Call of 
Duty, Ubisoft Montreal believes Patriots delivers everything players expect from a contemporary . 
shooter, and more. 

“This is all about recapturing our online crown,” says creative director David Sears. “Rainbow 
has often been a number one online adversarial shooter. We've been away for a little while, 
so we've focused a lot on updating the features we had before and adopting features that we 
needed to adopt to be competitive in the immediate future. We're not just catching up. We're get- 
ting ahead again.” 

Rainbow 6 Patriots’ multiplayer is built around an interesting visual metaphor, called the HQ. 
This high-tech virtual space serves as an interactive, fully rendered pregame lobby where gamers 
can invite friends, explore squad tactics via the game’s innovative new sandtable (see sidebar 
on page 64), sharpen skills at the firing range, tinker with weapon loadouts in the arsenal, and 
launch matches. 

Rather than force players to navigate text-heavy menus for matchmaking, once you join a 
match you enter an area that the dev team calls the troop transport. Here, players can see the 
actual character models for their teammates and opponents before matches as they take their 
seats. Ubisoft says this approach makes the ordinarily dry moments before a match a bit more 
interesting. “It’s not just a name on the screen, it’s actually a 3D rendition of the player, so you 
can see them, you can see the cool weapon they have, their uniform, and things like that,” 
Larouche says. 

Once enough players enter the transport (by walking in from a side passage, not teleporting and 
breaking the sense of immersion) a familiar countdown begins and the screen rumbles as you 
make way to your destination. 

Our multiptayer demo takes place in a large level called Waterworks. The lower portion of this 
abandoned structure is below the streets of New York. Its three-tiered design includes a well-lit 
open area ringed with stairwells, railings, and perches high above the action. Each level is color 
coded for easy navigation, though the paint is faded and flaked to match the rest of the dilapi- 
dated building. 

in the story campaign Rainbow Six requires players to think strategically and work as a team. 
That approach traditionally carried over to multiplayer as well, but for Patriots, Ubisoft built in : 
some tools to make it easier to assemble and work as a squad. The new commander and fol- 
lower mechanic is similar to how squads work in most shooters, with some critical underlying. 
differences. Ubisoft wants to encourage veteran players to mentor new recruits. When you see a 
player doing particularly well in the field, you can ask to be his follower. If he accepts, you then 


gain access to the tactical settings that he created in the sandtable. Commanders can also issue 
waypoints and mark targets for followers. On the mini-map, commanders not only see where 
their teammates are located, but can also see their cones of vision on a small radar map near 
the bottom of the screen. When it’s time to act as a team, commanders can issue go orders and 
countdowns so everyone knows when it’s time to breach a door or swing down from above. 

The dev team revisited player movement in the campaign to make the action feel more aggres- 
sive, and this philosophy carries over to multiplayer as well. Though the game still lacks a jump 
button, characters can now vault over low barriers and move from cover to cover automatically. 
Most importantly, rappelling is finally more effective than dropping a grenade at your feet. 

“We've streamlined the hell out of rappelling, so it’s very, very fast,” says creative director David 
Sears. “Rappel locations offer cover or clandestine entry oftentimes, though if you are exposed, 
the offensive capabilities that you have while you’re in rappel balance out the risks, so the reward 
is quite high. It’s not slow, and it’s not a death sentence anymore.” In a game where a single 
headshot almost certainly means a kill, that kind of mobility is critical. 

As with a lot of multiplayer games, Rainbow Six Vegas was prone to spawn camping. A highly 
skilled and coordinated team could box in opponents and kill them seconds after they popped into 
play. Patriots adds a few options that should alleviate those frustrations. If your team is pinned 
down in the default base spawn point, you can reenter the game next to a teammate or in a ran- 
domized safe zone away from the base. 

At the end of a match, players are greeted with a typical results screen filled with progression 
bars and a tally of earned medals and ribbons. In one of the nice touches added to the feedback 
screen, player accuracy is not only represented by a percentage, but also with an outline of a 
human target that’s peppered with the locations of your shots. It’s a nice way to provide visual 
feedback to a stat as important as it is boring. 

We saw the deathmatch mode in action, but Ubisoft promises new modes will accompany the 
traditional assortment of options. When asked if some modes or levels would require players 
to make the same tough decisions on collateral civilian damage as in the campaign, the team 
only offered up a cryptic “we have plans” response. The ACES progression system introduced 
in Rainbow Six Vegas will return with new enhancements, as will as the popular Persistent Elite 
Creation customization. Ubisoft Montreal wouldn’t comment on the inclusion of terrorist hunt, 
though it’s hard to believe the team would scrap such a popular mode. 

Many of the other multiplayer details are being kept under lock and keycard at this point, 
including the scope of co-op. Still, it’s obvious from what we saw that the studio hasn’t been in 
stasis over the past three years. 


“Collateral damage is unfortunate, but it’s acceptable 
when combating terrorism now, particularly with the evolu- 
tion of terrorism, which is ‘strike anywhere and make no 
demands,’” Sears says. 

For example, say a terrorist grabs a human shield in the 
subway system. You know he has a cell phone that can trig- 
ger multiple explosions throughout New York City, and he’s 
positioned in such a way that you can neutralize him only 
by shooting through his meat shield. The True Patriots know 
they're forcing you into these impossible situations, and 
given how pervasive technology is today, if you pull the trig- 
ger and wound or kill that civilian chances are high it could 
end up on the evening news, severely damaging the public 
profile of a once-clandestine operation. What do you do? 

“These are hard questions, and we do this consistently 
through almost every mission,” Sears says. 


Patriots In Action 

Our live game demo doesn’t start with Team Rainbow 
seated in the back of a chopper or outside a facility sur- 
rounded by police. Instead, our first glimpse comes from 
the perspective of a well-to-do real estate investor sitting in 
his idyllic American home. Judging by the polished wooden 
floors, large HDTV, and the iPad-like tablet sitting to his 
right, this guy is living the good life. 

In walks the the man’s wife, dressed only in a skimpy 
nightie. She turns off the TV and saunters toward him with 
a lit cupcake. 

“Happy birthday. Go on, blow it out,” she says. 

Like a scene out of Heavy Rain, the player is given the 
option to blow out the candle or stroke his wife’s cheek. The 
developer controlling the demonstration does both. 

“You Know what | wish for?” the man asks. 

“Well, the baby is asleep,” she replies seductively. 

“Wishes do come true.” 

Suddenly, the doorbell rings. The woman sighs. 
“That's probably Dave from next door,” she says. “Hold 


To get more soulful performances out of the characters, Ubisoft 
doubled the quality of source animation and is dedicating more 
processor time to skin shaders, fabric shaders, hair, and lighting. 


that thought.” 

The wife gets up to see who rang the bell, but just before 
she reaches for the doorknob the door bursts open. A group 
of men swiftly enter uninvited, knocking her to the ground. 

“Get away from her!” the homeowner cries. He gets up 
to defend his wife but doesn’t stand a chance against 
these rugged men. He’s easily knocked out cold. When 


he awakens, a bearded man in a military jacket who looks 
to be the leader of this group walks over and puts his knife 
to the wife’s neck. You can hear the baby crying faintly 
from upstairs. 

“Rise and shine, birthday boy,” the intruder says with a 
wake-up blow. “You have a very nice place here. Seems 
you cashed in on everyone getting foreclosed. Today, you 
are going to make up for that.” 

The True Patriots’ concept of restitution? Strapping him 
into a vest lined with explosives and going on a field trip. 

The scene transitions to the back of a van stuck in traf- 
fic on the Brooklyn Bridge. The ringleader of this opera- 
tion hands the birthday boy a trigger and warns him that 
if he doesn’t hold the detonator button down, he’ll go up 
in flames. If he doesn’t make it to Times Square before he 
releases the button, his family is dead. 

“This is living the American Dream on the worst day of 
your life,” Sears says. “The guy has everything — a kid, a 
wife, and a beautiful house at the expense of many other 
Americans. Then he experiences what is tantamount to 
home invasion and emotional rape. Everything is ripped 
away, and in order to save his family he becomes a symbolic 
and real weapon.” 

Correspondingly, the player controlling the demo has to 
hold this detonation button down as well for the remainder 
of this sequence. Before the True Patriots have a chance 
to get the bomber across the bridge, gunfire rings out and 
bullets riddle the van, hitting one of the terrorists inside, who 
falls on top of the bomber. 


The engine powering this experience comes from an 
unlikely source. Ubisoft Montreal built Rainbow Six Vegas 2 
with a heavily modified version of Unreal Engine 2. Instead 
of upgrading to Epic’s latest engine for Patriots, the team 
chose Ubisoft’s proprietary Anvil engine, made famous by 
Assassin's Creed. The studio undertook a huge amount 
of infrastructure work to retrofit the engine for the project, 
which explains the long break for the series. 

“The team was busy turning a really cool parkour hand- 
to-hand combat engine into a really cool shooter engine,” 
Sears says when asked why Rainbow Six has been absent 
for three years. “It’s taken a lot of effort.” 

The Patriots pour out the back of the van and into the 
streets. Their leader beckons the player to remove the dead 
body and follow him. The scene unfolding outside the van 
is chaos, with civilians abandoning their cars and running 
for cover, car alarms blaring, and shots raining down on 
the van’s position. As the duo moves 
forward under the hail of fire, a nearby 
car explodes, knocking the potential 
suicide bomber back. Luckily for his 
newborn baby and wife, the force of 
the blast doesn’t trigger the explo- 
sives strapped to his chest. 

Now the camera pulls out as the 
perspective shifts to Rainbow Six’s 
Echo team, which is positioned 
with sniper rifles on the top of the 
Manhattan side of the bridge. Zulu 


squad, lead by James Wolfe, instructs Echo team to pick 
off terrorists from afar as they move across the bridge. 
Teammates call out positions of the enemies as they move 
into range. Going into the new scan mode, which gives 
players a thermal readout of the situation, it’s much easier 
to pick out the targets. 

When the bomber nears the police blockade, the cops 
don’t see that he’s strapped with explosives. With no time 
to get on the horn to give NYPD a heads up, the developer 
playing the demo chooses to plug the boys in blue in the 
legs to incapacitate them. Though not an ideal solution, this 
keeps the bomber from destroying the bridge. At least he 
exercised restraint — panicked players could just as easily 
kill the cops. 

With the police blockade pacified, Echo team makes its 
way to ground level. This gives Ubisoft the chance to show 
off the new Rappel 2.5 technology powering Patriots. 


“I think this is a message that reverberates with a lot of Americans right now. 
Certainly, as someone who lost the entirety of his 401k in two days, I’m still kind 
of angry. Not that it’s personal, but in terms of player fa 


tasy this is a strong one 
for me, and I’m betting it’s a strong ons 0 


David Sears 


v" 


lone in the Vegas t 


a cumbersome sed 
you started your descent at the wrong time. After study- 
ing some of the pio 
elite law enforcement teams in South Korea, Serbia, and 
Australia, the developers realized that these squads could 
do way more than they originally believed while descending 
from above. 

“When you watch what they do in real life you think they 
are crazy, so of course | thought that we should let the play- 
ers do this,” Sears said. 

Instead of a slow and methodical rappel, the new 
Rainbow teams move with energy and excitement down 
the faces of buildings and bridges. If you want, you can run 
down the side of the building at full speed while firing your 
gun on unsuspecting targets below. The transitions on and 


reaching and infiltration have always been hallmarks of the Rainbow Six series, and 
Patriots is no exception. Ubisoft Montreal is giving players even more tools to surprise 


and overwhelm enemies with help from their squad. 


Much like the team in Ghost Recon, as technology advanced over the years Team 
Rainbow has gained access to new battlefield gadgets. The newest toy is the scan mode, an 
informational HUD inspired by the TSA airport scanners that allows its user to more easily spot 
threats such as firearms, which are highlighted in yellow. With scan mode a part of Rainbow’s 
regular equipment, the days of using snake cams in front of every door are over. If you want to 


62 


ring rappel techniques employed by 


ff the rope are much more fast-paced, which should make 
rappelling a more viable option in multiplayer as well. 

Echo team rappels down the bridge in rapid fashion, pick- 
ing off enemies down below as they advance. Once they 
reach the ground, the Patriots are firmly entrenched on the 
bridge behind abandoned cars, so Team Rainbow gets in 
tactical formation. 

With the soldiers on the ground we get a better feel for 
how combat is evolving. Gunplay looks more aggressive 
than in past games, with characters slamming in and out of 
cover violently enough to make the cars shake. 

Lead campaign gameplay designer Philippe Therien, who 
has worked on the series since Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow, 
says players should also expect an evolved control scheme. 
You can still use the legacy controls introduced in Rainbow 
Six Vegas that allow you to control when your soldier 


transitions from the first-person perspective into third-per- 
son in cover. But internally, most testers prefer a new control 
scheme. Ubisoft isn’t sharing details, but Therien says it 
feels more in line with the contemporary shooters and tran- 
sitions players in and out of cover more intuitively. The cover 
system also has new animations for vaulting, blind fire, and 
moving from cover to cover seamlessly. 

Ubisoft Montreal is streamlining the tactical controls to 
match the faster combat pace. Shooter fans who would 
rather spend time firing their own weapon than issuing com- 
mands should be excited about the new one-button tactics, 
a smart interface that contextually determines what your 
team should be doing given the location of enemies and 
what they are doing. By placing the reticle over an environ- 
mental object like a door, your Al squad will select a smart 
breach and call out their intentions so you know their plans. 


continued on page 65 


breach a room, turn on the intelligent technology and the scanner does the rest, outlining bodies 
thermally to give you a clear read on the situation. Not having to peer under each door with the 


snake cam gives you more time to ponder your options from a safe distance. 


Ubisoft set up one mock scenario to show off this new tech and give us an idea of just how 
many options are available to the player for any particular breach. The setup is deceptively 
simple: A group of six terrorists is holed up in a garage that has three points of entry. To make the 
situation more volatile, there’s a hostage on his knees with a shotgun-wielding thug behind him. 
Spook him, and the VIP is as good as dead. What do you do? 


———— 


FRAG AND CLEAR 

The squad assembles near the front door, quietly slides it open, and rolls a frag grenade into the 
garage. The blast knocks one terrorist down, and the remaining men turn and fire on the exposed 
Rainbow team. All of the terrorists are killed, though the hostage was also killed in the chaos. “In 
some rooms that might be great, that might be wonderful, but in this room it’s a bad idea,” says 
lead campaign gameplay designer Philippe Therien. 


STEALTH ENTRY 

The squad assembles near the front door and quietly slides it open, crouch-walking their way 

to cover at the player’s instruction. They automatically stand up and recommend targets to the 
player when they’re out of enemy sight, returning to cover when patrols are nearby. The player 
overrides the Al recommendations, instead telling one squad member to focus on the hostage- 
taker and the other on a terrorist on a patrol. On the player’s go sign, the squad leaps into action. 
In a few seconds the team, with help from the player, clears the room and rescues the civilian. 


STEALTH AND SMOKE 

The squad assembles near the front door and quietly slides it open, crouch-walking their way to 
cover. One squad member is ordered to roll a smoke grenade toward the center of the garage as 
the other lines up a shot on the hostage taker. When the command is ordered, the Al knows not to 
take the shot until the smoke has started to discharge, providing cover. As before, the terrorists 
are systematically taken out and the hostage is saved. 


MISDIRECTION 
The squad is ordered to break down a door on the left side of the garage. Meanwhile, the player 
takes position on the far side of the building. The door bursts off its hinges, knocking down the 
enemy on the other side. The terrorists direct their attention on the disturbance, giving the player 
enough time to open the other door, take out the hostage-taker, and then engage the remaining 
confused terrorists. 


LAST STAND 

In this worst-case scenario, the terrorists have been alerted to Rainbow's presence before the 
squad gain strategic entry. Unlike in previous Rainbow Six games, the enemy Al kicks into what 
Ubisoft Montreal calls a last stand mode. Rather than file out of the building to investigate — 
becoming easy targets in the process — the terrorists take strategic positions in the garage. 
“Considering how frag grenades are going to be in such a limited quantity, when you have to 

use two of three grenades to clear the room because they're all in defensive positions, you’ve 
expended a lot of resources to compensate for that mistake,” Therien says. If the player is an inaf 
fective leader, for instance by failing to help his team by calling out hidden targets he sees using 
scan mode, this situation can be catastrophic. 

These are just some of the many ways breach situations can play,out. When you factor in tools 
such as det cords (explosives used to blast open doors, turning enemies on the other side into 
porcupines), nonlethal neutralization, explosive ceiling breaches, rappel breaches, and explosive 
insertions, you can imagine just how many different ways you can approach each encounter. 


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hen Rainbow Six moved to Las Vegas, it gambled 
away the pre-mission planning that was a staple 

of the series (we’re pretending Lockdown never 

happened, too). That concession was a welcome 
change for multiplayer participants who wanted to put their 
boots onto the ground as soon as possible and create strate- 
gies on the fly in the field. For Patriots, Ubisoft Montreal is 
reincorporating some of those strategic elements with a 
feature that could prove invaluable to both new players and 
elite competitors. 

The sandtable is an in-game holographic environment in the 
multiplayer HQ. At its base level, the sandtable allows players 
to get acquainted with maps. “You can explore the multiplayer 
environments without having the stress of competing or having 
other players shooting at you,” says lead multiplayer designer 
Simon Larouche. 

While in this red-tinged virtual world, players can wander 
around levels alone or with friends. Even though the crimson 
presentation is different, the layouts are identical to their online 
counterparts. Points of interest such as doors, ladders, and 
rappel spots are highlighted in yellow to call attention to their 
importance. While navigating the interiors, players can drop 
markers and signs pointing out notable spots. For instance, a 
favorite sniping position can be flagged with a few taps of the 
d-pad and a button press or two. If there’s a doorway leading to 
a popular camping zone, the player can create a quick advisory 
message to recommend chucking a grenade through the door 
before proceeding. 

Once you're in the game, you can share this information with 
your squadmates or the community at large. Players can rate 
these tips, which can be strung together in virtual playbooks. 
Rather than saying “Everyone meet up by that red thing,” play- 
ers who use the sandtable effectively can share their plays 
and then say “Rally at point A.” Hardcore strategists can create 
three different strategies for every map and game mode, which 
gives them the flexibility to provide plans for beginners, inter- 
mediates, and elites. 

“It’s really important to give players the opportunity to 
explore maps before they get shot in the face the first 30 or 40 
times,” explains creative director David Sears. “This is the story 
of my life; | used to be a really, really excellent adversarial mul- 
tiplayer guy, but now I’m pretty old and people like Simon just 
own me. For me, the sandtable was an opportunity to give me 
the edge | need to get back into the game. So | go into a non- 
threatening environment, and | can see where the most dan- 
gerous crossfires or ambushes are going to be set up. | can see 
where the best sniping positions are. Also, | can see paths that | 
should take highlighted through augmented reality, and only the 
people on my team using these sandtable plans can see. 

“If [need to get from point A to B and there’s a very high 
likelihood that I’m going to be shot while I’m in transit, there’s 
a plan for me. It tells me what | should be doing, how | can get 
there, exactly where | should put my feet — if | want that level 
of detail. As | mature as a gamer, then | just know the maps 
naturally and | don’t have to spend time looking at a newbie 
plan or a beginner plan or an introductory plan. Then | can 
look at plans that are for more elite play. | think that’s what’s 
really cool about the sandtable: It scales from easing entry 
for first-time squad-based online adversarial shooter players 
or for people whose skills have atrophied over the decades, 
but then as | grow and mature as a player, | sort of rejuvenate 
myself and I.start looking at elite plans that give me an edge 
over people who aren’t studying the environments in this type 
of detail.” : 


64 


The more morally gray or even black your actions, the greater or lesser 
effect you'll have on some Al teammates. Their opinions of you may only 
be expressed in purely aesthetic way in terms of their performance and 


the dialogue, but you will know when you are pushing someone’s buttons 


“We wanted to give players a simple way to act on what 
that voice in the back of their head tells them would be the 
smart thing to do in this particular situation,” Sears says. 

Old-school Rainbow Six fans who savor the ability to 
micromanage their squad aren't being forsaken in the 
quest to appeal to mainstream players. Patriots still has an 
extended team command menu that gives players serious 
strategic depth. Here, you can control your team actions 
right down to the type of grenade you want them to use in 
a particular breaching scenario (see Into The Breach sidebar 
on page 62). 

As Echo team moves forward down the bridge, Therien 
issues contextual commands and the squads react intel- 
ligently, taking cover and selecting targets automatically. 
Building this intelligent systemic Al is another major reason 
Rainbow Six has been dormant for so long. Ubisoft wanted 
the Al companions to not only take on unique personalities, 
but be capable of reading the scenarios at hand and acting 
as a spec ops soldier would in that context. If you arm a 
squad member with close quarters combat gear, he knows 
to advance on enemy positions. If you outfit another with a 
sniper rifle, he will hang back and pick out targets from afar. 

The Al enhancements also extend to the enemy soldiers. 
To make the targets act in a more varied and believable 
fashion, Ubisoft crafted several Al archetypes, some of 
which even allow them to make mistakes. You may occa- 
sionally see an enemy trip and fall as he heads for a new 
cover position. On the other side of the combat spectrum, 
the best enemies you face have the full Al capabilities of 
your squad mates, making them just as smart as many of 
the players behind the controllers. 

Therien also promises that the shootouts won't devolve 
into whack-a-mole, with enemies poking their heads out of 
cover every few seconds. 

“We're going to be a game a lot more about positioning,” 
he says. “If a guy goes in cover and returns fire, you're going 
to have to find a way to get a line of sight on him. He'll relo- 
cate if he realizes the cover is compromised.” 


Enemies also won't stand around mindlessly like Al robots 
just waiting for their turn to get gunned down. Every enemy 
has a job or agenda, like loading a truck with explosives or 
guarding a hostage. 

“They're always doing something,” Sears says. 
“They aren't just standing around talking about their 
CD collections.” 

As Echo squad moves down the bridge taking fire from 
walkways above and from behind abandoned cars, it some- 
times proves difficult to distinguish between enemies charg- 
ing their position and civilians running for their life. Properly 
selecting targets is going to be one of the major challenges 
during these urban combat sequences, and Sears says 
the team plans to track your performance and upload your 
results for the world to see. 

“What we're looking at doing is taking regional data to find 
the bloodthirstiest communities,” he says. “We may take 
aggregate data based on they way people are playing the 
game and choose to unlock or award different regions with 
bonuses — content that nobody else will get or you will only 
get when your region reaches a certain threshold in terms 
of performance.” 

After downing a few remaining Patriots, the playtester 
finally reaches the bomber, who frantically tries to explain 
the situation. Here Echo leader faces the unenviable task 
of deciding this man’s fate. The team tells him he’s running 
out of time, and Wolfe asks him if he wants to save one 
life or lose 200. This turns out to be the suburban man’s 
worst birthday ever, as Echo leader makes the tough call 
and pushes him off the bridge. Screaming as he plummets 
to his untimely demise, this man thrust into an impossible 
situation finally takes his finger off the detonator, exploding 
right before hitting the water. 

“| could have stopped it,” one squad member says 
in disgust. 

“No, no you couldnt have,” Wolfe replies. 


Breaching The Envelope 
These types of “bad or worse” situations define the story 
campaign in Rainbow 6 Patriots. Given the sensitive subject 
matter of Americans turning on each other, we asked the 
team if they were prepared to face a media controversy 
propagated by news networks that move so quickly and 
ignorantly to condemn video games as youth-corrupting 
trash. We can see the sensational headline now: “Liberal 
Game Publisher Paints Tea Party as Terrorists.” 

“We're not concerned about any kind of media back- 
lash because we’re not an exploitative game,” Sears 
reassures US. 

“This [subject matter] wasn't picked to be controversial 
on purpose,” Rouse continues. “We're trying to set a game 
that feels current and doesn’t feel like it’s old terrorism. If 
you continue to do a game with the same enemies or the 
same foreigners and you just sort of ignore things that are 
changing in the world it just starts feeling fake. It feels like 
‘this is just a video game.” 

“Why can’t a game be smarter?” Sears asks in all seri- 
ousness. “Why can’t a game embrace issues? We're not 
coming down with any kind of ruling or judgment about 
any of this. We're letting people talk amongst themselves. 
We're making a game that we want to provoke discussion 
and deeper thought. We certainly welcome the opportunity 
to talk intelligently and thoughtfully about mature subject 
matter. As the game industry evolves, we're going to face 
these issues more and more often.” : 


To learn more about Rainbow 6 Patriots, check out our developer interviews at 
gameinformer.com/rainbowsix :