Ubisoft have done the sensible thing and turned Rainbow Six into a turn-based tactical game. Nabbing the special ability-laden operators of Rainbow Six Siege and dropping them into the XCOM: Chimera Squad framework. The Mario + Rabbids developer have found a spin off that looks to be a natural fit for the series.
In Rainbow Six Tactics, you'll be returning to the tactical shoes of Paul Bishop, protagonist of Rainbow Six Vegas 1 and 2. Though he has now hung up his flashbang belt and rappel rope and settled into the Rainbow commander's chair. It's a tense time in the control room as a terrorist group has started launching attacks around the globe and, wouldn't you know it, Rainbow are the only international team of super agents who can put the trouble down.
Rather than starting with blank slate cadets and specialising them through combat, as in full-fat XCOM, Rainbow Six Tactics is more similar to XCOM spin-off Chimera Squad or Tactical Breach Wizards, where you have a set roster of operators who each come equipped with special abilities. Though, naturally, this makes sense for Ubisoft's take on the genre, as all of its 15 operators are pulled from Rainbow Six Siege and bring with them their abilities from the 5v5 hero shooter.
Watching through the trailer, I clocked Nokk, Glaz, Montagne, Ash, Doc, Sledge, and Zofia, so there will be a good spread of aggressive damage dealers, support units, flankers, and snipers. It also plays well into the destructible environments, with certain characters, such as Sledge, very capable of breaking through walls to open up paths through a level.
Another lift from Rainbow Six Siege is the reconnaissance phase that starts each mission. Before you get into the action of Rainbow Six Tactics, you use drones to eye up the map and spot where terrorists are hiding in the level. While Ubisoft's levels aren't procedurally generated, like those in XCOM 2, enemy spawn positions will change each time you play, so that reconnaissance phase will be useful.
There is one last step before the action kicks off proper: breaching. Each map has several breach points, so depending on what you find on the other side of the wall in the reconnaissance phase, different breach points will be more tempting. Pick a point and watch your four chosen operators stack up on a wall, blast their way inside a locked room, and work together to shoot any immediate targets. After which the action switches to more traditional turn-based play.
I play a lot of turn-based tactical games and, as I've tried to show above, Rainbow Six Tactics features a lot of mechanics from other games in the genre. XCOM: Chimera Squad, Tactical Breach Wizards, a smidge of Door Kickers. That said, that cribbing hasn't soured me in Rainbow Six Tactics, they're all natural touchstones for a turn-based take on Siege, and none of the games Ubisoft are pulling from combine these features in quite this way.
The element of Siege that is on show in the trailer, but I want to see more of in action is destructible environments. It's such a central pillar to Rainbow Six Siege that I'd hope it was brought over with a similar level of care and thought. Yes, in Siege, destruction is used to open up new pathways through a level, but it is also a vital tool for intel gathering. Knocking a small hole in a wall lets you see through into a room or corridor beyond. The recon phase in Rainbow Six Tactics suggests the challenge of fog of war, and so something of that use for destruction could live in the turn-based game, but I'd like to see more to know for sure.
Rainbow Six Tactics isn't due out until 2027, so there's a bit of a wait. But, I'm also heartened to see there is non-Siege life in the series. After all, this is the first single-player Rainbow Six game since (the excellent) Vegas 2, 17 years ago.
Source: Read the original article on www.rockpapershotgun.com
