In an interview with CVG, Ubisoft president Yves Guillemot has explained the company’s decision to scrap Rainbow Six: Patriots and re-imagine it as the multiplayer tactical shooter Rainbow Six: Siege.
”We realised that we needed to go first with multiplayer,” said Guillemot. ”Before, when we made games, we were leading first with single-player and then taking the systems from that to do multi-player. With Rainbow Six we said, ‘OK, we have to change our way of doing things’ - lead with mutli-player first and then make single-player from that.”
“That’s what made us change the game totally. We decided to restart with that in mind. The decision came from what we were seeing in the marketplace and because we wanted to do a 60 frames-per-second multi-player game.”
Patriots was first announced way back on November 2011, with the title making an appearance at E3 2012 in the form of the non-gameplay trailer above. Ubisoft went rather quiet on the game after that, until it was officially cancelled on June 9, 2014. At the time it was suggested by Rainbow Six brand director Alexandre Remy that the cancellation was due to Ubisoft deciding to switch to more advanced technology to coincide with the next generation of consoles.
When asked how difficult it was to scrap a lond-standing, expensive project, Guillemot replied; ”In a way it was difficult because you have to say ‘OK, let’s do a write-off’. But the business has become a bit clearer; if you don’t make the right decisions, it tells you at the end you’ve made a big mistake. The longer you wait, the bigger the mistake is.”
“So in a way the decision is easier to make now than it was before. Before we could say, ‘OK, we’ll still sell a couple of million units and monetize our investment’. Today if you are not at the right quality level, nobody will buy. Nobody will like it.”
