(PC, PS3, XBOX 360)
Perspective shifts, domestic terrorism, and shades of Heavy Rain and PlayStation Home are all present in this upcoming Rainbow 6 installment.
Fast forward a bit and you're trapped in a van on the Brooklyn Bridge. Everything that can go wrong is in the midst of going wrong. You're under fire, the men who kidnapped you are busy shouting or dying, and one of them reiterates the "get to Times Square or they die" threat. The doors open and the Brooklyn Bridge lies under siege. Everyone around you is either shooting or screaming or dying. Men in black body armor assault you from multiple angles as you race your way down the bridge. Then, the perspective shifts, and you make a realization: the armor-clad foes who have been raining down assault rifle fire -- the terrorizing enemy -- turn out to be Rainbow Six operatives. That is, from your perspective of a civilian-forced-into-suicide-bomber, the heroes ofRainbow 6 Patriots have become the enemy. And now in Rainbow's perspective, the innocent civilian is now the primary target. This perspective shift (which occurs rarely in the game, so don't mistake this for multi-perspective action a la Call of Duty) reinforces one of the primary points of Patriots: anyone can be the enemy.
This sequence (which is mostly reproduced in the above target video -- some dialogue has been tweaked and the art assets are different, but the demonstration I see is a live gameplay version of the above scenario) gives a distinctly unsettling impression -- which seems to be in line with creative director David Sears and the rest of the development team's goal with Patriots. "From our [Rainbow Six Vegas] post-launch data, people couldn't really remember why the characters were there doing the things they were doing, or sometimes even their names," notes Sears. By aiming the story inward -- where the biggest terrorist threat doesn't come from a foreigner with a missile launcher downing an aircraft, but from the disgruntled former factory worker targeting the local metro -- the developers have already made Patriots' story stand out. Lead campaign designer Phillipe Therien notes that the feel is somewhat timeless; even though it was conceived and written at least a year ago, the story gives off a, "What if someone took some of the ideas and frustrations behind Occupy Wall Street, but added direct violence to the message" vibe. Therien thinks that even when that movement has passed by Patriots' 2013 release, that there will be some other outlet of American anger that will keep Patriots' plot contemporary.
Sears goes on to talk about how said plot focuses on the True Patriots -- an amalgamation of disenfranchised military veterans and frustrated Americans led by a charismatic former military officer named Jonah Tredway -- and Rainbow's (including your commanding officer James Wolfe, who seems to follow the Jack Bauer from 24 method of taking down terrorists) efforts to neutralize him. How it's a three-act story that has Rainbow investigating and preventing Tredway's multiple plans; "this might be the first installment where Rainbow gets to an incident before the first responders or the crime scene tape," he quips. He notes that most of the game takes place in America -- in locations as iconic as Times Square in New York City, and as low-key yet seedy due to their isolation as the Salton Sea -- but recognizes that Rainbow is an international organization, and some missions (in both the campaign and the multiplayer) take place outside of the U.S. Still, the narrative focus, and the reason that Patriots stands out, is the idea that terrorism can now come from anywhere, and that no one is safe.
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Therien reflects on this basic theme; "we want to show you that the enemy has a life, or an agenda. That it's not always an easy, 'kill the bad guy' decision. That's why we sometimes change the perspective -- to show you more and give you a little bit of doubt when it comes time to pull the trigger." It's why the developers have you play a reluctant suicide bomber -- one whose day starts with small button prompts for interactions like, "kiss wife" or "blow candle" or "stroke cheek", which then give way to erratically bouncing directives like, "hold R1 to prevent detonation", which reminds me of Heavy Rain somewhat. It's why you might play a first responder, like a paramedic or a local cop, and be taken aback when dudes in body armor and assault rifles pop out of nowhere and start yelling at you. It's why the developers throw in small moments of pause, such as the player receiving a command to disable NYPD officers who are about to corner the bomber because they might prematurely cause the detonation (though, like the time when Arnold goes non-lethal inTerminator 2, this comes from shooting the cops in the legs).
It's this stuff that makes the demonstration stand out. Sure, there are some gameplay mechanics that show that this should be the requisite improved sequel. Rappeling has been expanded; the traditional rappel from the two Rainbow Six Vegas installments now fulfill a more conservative role -- a crazy "run down the side of a building while firing" type of rappel lifted from South Korean and Serbian forces now provides an extra method to assaulting the enemy. The snake cam has given way to a portable version of the backscatter or millimeter wave technology used in airports -- so now you can see through walls to plot out your breaches.
The interface has been streamlined to "one button tactics," where a context-sensitive button, plus your teammates' A.I., can usually figure out what you mean when you press the button somewhere. Press it behind cover near an entrenched enemy? You probably want them to lay down suppressive fire. Press it on a door after tagging some fools behind it? You probably want some sort of breach-and-clear. Though, if you don't trust the one-button press, you can hold it down for an actual menu to spell out exactly what you want. Additionally, your teammates can even suggest enemy tags or actions -- a sniper might designate which enemies he can comfortably headshot while you sit there and plan. Oh, and there's a new breaching option: a simple kicking down of the door that can knock someone out because, well, a door just slammed into them.
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Multiplayer designer Simon Larouche shows off a few of the improvements. The most immediate one Is the minimal interface -- the multiplayer acts somewhat like PlayStation Home in that players control their Persistent Elite Creation (PEC) character avatars in the game space. Rather than sit in a lobby menu while waiting for a match to kick off, players will have characters sitting and talking inside an APC or helicopter as it carries them to the mission.
But the main multiplayer addition comes from Patriots' treatment of an old-school Rainbow Six feature: a 3D projection of a mission or level called the Sandtable. The developers consider the Sandtable a follow-up to the original Rainbow Six's planning mode; here, the players can fly around the map and place markers for waypoints, tag objects such as weapons and probable enemies, and all of these will show up as augmented reality markers in-game. Though, the developers recognize the popular military axiom of, "no plan survives contact with the enemy," and players can either create contingency plans to follow, or simply use the same one-button system for immediate on-the-fly reactions.
Another tweak to multiplayer comes from how squad leaders -- that is, the head of a four-man team within a session -- can now issue commands via the one-button interface. If smart orders are issued, and the other players actually fulfill said orders, they can earn perks and bonuses for following orders and working together as a team.
Notice that so far, I've talked mostly about feel and concept, and that there aren't that many gameplay reveals. Sure, there's the one-button stuff, the revised A.I., and neat ideas for multiplayer. But not much about multiplayer modes or what else you do in the campaign besides intercept a bomber off the Brooklyn Bridge. Patriots still has a lot of time in its development, and many of those mechanics are either not finalized or simply too early to show. Heck, Ubisoft is being cagey about specific platforms -- the fact that it was demoed on a PS3 is the main justification for the standard "360, PS3, and PC" platforms we file this story under. But we wouldn't be surprised at a Wii U version, or even one for the next-generation consoles rumored to ship in 2012.
Click the image above to check out all Rainbow 6 Patriots screens.
But what stands out so far aren't the improvements to teammate A.I. or the new rappelling maneuver. It's the bigger question of how people will react to a Rainbow Six game where Americans are the enemy. How players will feel to control someone who has been forced into being a suicide bomber. Or how players will feel in the situation afterward -- when Rainbow finally corners the reluctant bomber. One teammate insists that he can find some way to remove or defuse the device, while your team leader says that Rainbow needs to trade this one life in order to save the 200 on the bridge. During the last 20 seconds, the man you just controlled -- the same one who was just enjoying his morning iPad and a cupcake for his birthday -- pleads for both the sake of his wife and child and for you to find a way to free him. So how will you then feel when that situation comes up, and you see one prompt: "eliminate threat?"
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