Rainbow Six Siege is now alive and well. Despite a rough launch, it is still going strong three years in with continues fixes and update being added. But before Siege, there was another Rainbow Six game, which would have focused on the single-player like its previous installments.
Rainbow Six Patriots were announced back in 2011, bringing a heavy plot where Team Rainbow has to stop The True Patriots a group of terrorists operating within the USA, that appeared sympathetic to a certain point. Patriots would have focused more on its heavy themes and story, more than any previous Rainbow Six games.
Patriots was cancelled in late 2012, with many of its key staff departed from Ubisoft. What remained of the team at Ubisoft Montreal regrouped and created Rainbow Six Siege, the multiplayer tactical FPS with environmental destruction we know today.
This excellent video by GVMERS explained how Rainbow Six Patriots was first announced and the troubles it went which led to its cancellation. Interestingly, it was not because of its controversial themes, rather they faced technical problems in regards to the use of the proprietary AnvilNext engine that powered the Assassin’s Creed games at the time.
While it is a shame that we never see the single-player campaign came to fruition, which would have been oh-so-relevant in today’s world, but to see the developers bounced back from a hard failure is an inspiring story.