Ubisoft Brings Back Rainbow Six and More at E3

Rainbow Six. Illustration: Ubisoft

A new version of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six highlighted game publisher Ubisoft’s press conference at E3 on Monday afternoon, which had plenty of top-selling franchises if comparatively few big surprises.

The demonstration of Rainbow Six: Siege showed two groups of five players each — one attempting to defend a hostage inside a suburban house, and another attempting to extract the hostage from the house. The players with the captive could barricade doors and windows and set up massive shields, while the players on offense could use drones to spy on the enemy, then attempt to blow up the walls, floors and ceilings of the house to get the drop on them.

Since Ubisoft owns the rights to use the Tom Clancy name in perpetuity on any old thing it wants, it is also publishing Tom Clancy’s The Division, which is also about shooting people but in a post-apocalyptic world.

Ubisoft demonstrated an upcoming version of its perennially popular Just Dance game, which will now allow players to upload videos of themselves dancing to the songs, which can then be viewed by other players; Ubisoft says the game’s developers will eventually incorporate the best dance moves into actual gameplay.

And it wouldn’t be a Ubisoft conference without Assassin’s Creed; this latest game subtitled Unity is set in the French revolution and allows four players to go through the campaign together. In colorful assassin robes that make them look like Alvin, Simon and Theodore.

A racing game called The Crew promises to let players drive from Miami to New York to Los Angeles and everywhere else in the United States (no, Ubisoft literally promises this) with no loading screens ever. That could be pretty amazing if it works out as good as it sounds. We’ll find out for sure later this year.

The only game of Ubisoft’s that could truly be said to break the mold is Valiant Hearts: The Great War. Made in the UbiArt Framework engine that birthed similar 2-D cartoon games Rayman Legends and Child of Light, it’s a true-to-life story of four soldiers in World War I. It was a pretty depressing trailer that paints a picture of a sad game. But, you know, in a good way.