New Rainbow Six adds morality - report

By Fred Dutton Published 23 June, 2011

Players asked to make difficult choices.

The new Rainbow Six game thought to be in development at Ubisoft will feature a complex morality system that asks players to think carefully about the consequences of their actions.

According to a Kotaku report, this branching path feature is a key aspect of the revamped tactical shooter.

One particularly visceral sequence in the game reportedly sees your team attempting to stop a terrorist group from blowing up a bridge leading into New York.

The bomb is strapped to an innocent stranger and you'll have to choose between immediately killing the civilian to save the bridge or risk hundreds of lives by trying to rescue him.

The HUD apparently shows the blast radius of the bomb, how many people are in its range and where the other members of your team are located.

The report claims that one possible outcome has you pushing the man off the bridge, viewing some of his memories as he falls, and then witnessing him explode.

Kotaku's sources also managed to procure a couple of early screenshots, reproduced here.

Earlier this month word sneaked out that the back-to-basics game, which Ubisoft still hasn't confirmed exists, sees your team attempting to thwart a homegrown US terrorist cell hellbent on reducing Manhattan to rubble.

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About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (44) Latest comment 11 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Jimjamyaha #1 11 months ago

    …pushing the man off the bridge, viewing some of his memories as he falls, and then witnessing him explode.

    That's all very well but it's hardly as tough as questions like "who do you give your last Rolo to?". Add a bit of realism to games and this game'll be madder than a box of frogs who have gone down to the bus stop realised they've missed the bus. And it's raining AND they've left their umbrellas at home! THIS IS MADNESS!!!!

  • neilka #2 11 months ago

    PRESS A TO SHOOT TERRORIST
    PRESS B TO FLIRT WITH TERRORIST

  • HugePS3Fan #3 11 months ago

    NUKE THIS BABY
    OR
    CRASH THIS CRUISE SHIP INTO YOUR DAD

    SEALS MAKE TOUGH CHOICES EVERY DAY

  • the_dudefather #4 11 months ago

    Every moral choice better begin with 'POP QUIZ HOTSHOT'

  • riceNpea #5 11 months ago

    at this point i would like to know what are the ramifications of the choices i make to gameplay to be able to judge just how 'complex' the system is. will it affect and shape the whole experience thereafter or just be for the moment?

  • Oh-Bollox #6 11 months ago

    The report claims that one possible outcome has you pushing the man off the bridge, viewing some of his memories as he falls, and then witnessing him explode. - This may be the most hilariously bad attempt at trying to elicit sympathy I have ever heard. Fucking grow up.

  • orpheus #7 11 months ago

    Could be interesting, even if the first impression of it seems a little shallow.

    Now just ditch the Kinect bollocks, for the love of Jebus. Doesn't exactly add to the realism!

  • TagemandBagem #8 11 months ago

    I still don't understand why Ubisoft take games like R6 and Ghost Recon, that were made popular for their realism and difficulty and then turn them into simplistic, arcade shooters. I think it's more because they're soul-less assholes, than any business reason.

  • cloud_ix #9 11 months ago

    wasn't this in Army of two 40th day? Wasn't a very compelling feature of that game

  • metalangel #10 11 months ago

    Press A if target is terrorist
    Press B if target is freedom fighter

  • riceNpea #11 11 months ago

    kill him, don't kill him.

    can i take the Father Ted route of decision making and sit around drinking cups of tea talking it through and then decide to have another Mass?

  • Mark1412 #12 11 months ago

    Take out the part where I magically view some silly memories of a guy I just killed for the greater good and hey, it might be alright. Don't need some nonsense, in your face, Hollywood "THE TIME TO CRY IS NOW CUE MUSIC AND SLOW MOTION" scene to transform something interesting into comedy.

  • RevanNL #13 11 months ago

    You got it all wrong, after this years E3 it's going to be all Kinect based. So push forward to push some dude of a bridge, shout "Nuke, blow up" to the damn thing to blow up a nuke etc etc. And to top all of that, at the end of each mission you'll have to shout 'Fist bump!' to congratulate your teammates.

  • BuddyChrist #14 11 months ago

    What they don't tell you is that if you save the civilian with the bomb, but leave the city dwellers to die, you have to watch four hours worth of fragmented memories of people you don't give a crap about....

  • BuddyChrist #15 11 months ago

    Oh hey! What if every enemy soldier killed is followed by an Austin Powers style aside: Trev is the greatest guy in the world etc etc. Wait, phone...... What?! Trev was killed by one of Clancy's finest with a rifle shot to the ballbag?!? *weeps deeply*

  • GooseUK #16 11 months ago

    I AM DISAPPOINT

  • Indy #17 11 months ago

    Manhattan?

    Now that's a place we've never been to before...

  • Ashcroft #18 11 months ago

    In the scenario described, the civilian would be shot immediately. Not a lot of room for whiny emotional indecisive fuck ups in anti-terrorism.

  • Alestes #19 11 months ago

    Sounds interesting, I just hope they won't infect the PC version with their horrible DRM.

  • arcam #20 11 months ago

    Manhattan?

    Now that's a place we've never been to before...

    How game developers see the world: http://i.imgur.com/V36KM.jpg

  • The-Bodybuilder #21 11 months ago

    In bizzaro world, Mass effect becomes more like rainbow 6, and rainbow 6 becomes more like mass effect.

  • Tanners #22 11 months ago

    @arcam
    Sorry this this is a really weird question, but are you a redditor?

  • BillMurray #23 11 months ago

    Colour me interested.

  • arcam #24 11 months ago

    @Tanners

    ಠ_ಠ
    Edited by arcam at 24/06/11 @ 00:11

  • lockload #25 11 months ago

    Boom headshot, worry over

    although the setup makes no sense, why would shooting the innocent person with the vest on stop the bomb?
    Edited by lockload at 24/06/11 @ 00:27

  • trooperdx3117 #26 11 months ago

    Well that genuinely sounds like the stupidest scenario ever, why would you not kill the guy with the bomb since if you dont kill him he blows up anyway kills hundreds more people, think these things through ubisoft!

  • DrStrangelove #27 11 months ago

    The report claims that one possible outcome has you pushing the man off the bridge, viewing some of his memories as he falls, and then witnessing him explode.

    When you push someone off a bridge, you can see his memories? That's awesome, gotta try that.

  • metalangel #28 11 months ago

    ArmA2 had a good conundrum in the main campaign: you find a cache of arms. The local pastor says they're used by the local rebels, who you are trying to curry favour with as you share a common enemy. Do you follow your orders to report them, or look the other way to potentially gain local support?

    In the British campaign, you're enroute to your destination when you come under mortar attack. There are clearly insurgents hiding all around the sides of the valley, spotting you. Order your vehicles to keep going and get out of danger (but leave the mortar team covering the road), or stop to go deal with them and risk one landing right in your laps as you stop your vehicles and disembark from them?

    Both great examples of a realistic split-second decision in battle, and no schmaltzy 'look into the life you just destroyed' out of body experience.
    Edited by metalangel at 24/06/11 @ 00:56

  • AaronTurner #29 11 months ago

    Basically if you decide to try and save him and you fail then you have to restart the scenario because you'll be dead, not much choice really.

  • randompanda #30 11 months ago

    You know what? I want fucking escapism when I play my games. I don't want to have to make difficult choices like i do in real life. In duke nukems day it was as simple as 'pay stripper' and that was it :( god I'm an angry individual.

  • coolbritannia #31 11 months ago

    Take out the memory bit, this will be good. Keep Kinect, I want hand signals in game.

  • dirtysteve #32 11 months ago

    No team would try disarming the bomb, it's fly-time for unlucky alf with the bomb vest. The only choice is how long does the team wait before high-fiving.

  • Oh-Bollox #33 11 months ago

    "Wait for it! WAIT FOR IT!"

    /splash
    /muffled BOOM

    "Yeah, high five!"

  • raion #34 11 months ago

    We don't need obvious and spoon fed "morality", for pete's sake. When I played Vegas 2 in coop, I remember we were stacking up to a room with a hostage and terrorist talking in it. As we were discussing the most effective strategy to use, in order to minimize danger to the hostage when we took action, one of the terrorist pointed the gun to the hostage and took a shot, while I was scdreaming over the headset "HE'S GONNA SHOOT HIM! BREACH NOW! BREACH NOOOOW!" stuck in the "peek under" view. We took it too slow, and as a result the hostage died. Saving him wasn't a part of the mission objective. Yet we felt really bad. We moved on, but we agreed to avoid to make that mistake again.
    That, I feel, was an excellent moral choice, even though it wasn't obvious: if we disregarded the hostage's safety we could have saved him by just bursting in the room, but instead we cared too much, and ended up doing nothing while he died.

    The one described here isn't a choice at all really. Greater good and all that. Just shoot him.

  • SlackMaster #35 11 months ago

    Not so sure about the moral choices bit as I assume that your just following orders but screenshots look nice. Also cannot wait for this game... hope it's out this year and doesn't keep getting delayed like Ghost Recon.

  • KDR_11k #36 11 months ago

    Somehow I can't imagine serious moral choices and Tom Clancy getting along. This is the guy who keeps fantasizing about the Soviet Union resurrecting itself just so Americans have someone familiar to fight.

  • gallow #37 11 months ago

    Head or gut?

  • anthonypappa #38 11 months ago

    sounds shit. crappy cinematic QTE scenes for the COD generation.

    are there any more tactical shooters left?!

  • fletch273 #39 11 months ago

    Terrorists are attacking the US? Again? I bet in the end it turns out to be the Russians.

    Seriously, these stories in video games are getting repetetive.

  • metalangel #40 11 months ago

    If it's a lady hostage: front or back?

  • PearOfAnguish #41 11 months ago

    Push him off a bridge? That sounds fun, I'll go for that option every time. In fact let me do that for every mission.

    Press A to shoot terrorist. Press B to push terrorist off bridge.

    They can dress it up as a moral choice if they like, don't care so long as someone's getting shoved off something.

  • Cryotek #42 11 months ago

    Dear Ubisoft, more things like Rainbow Six: Vegas, GRAW, and Chaos Theory, less things like Conviction please? How can one company screw up an entire franchise so quickly?

  • bloodflowers #43 11 months ago

    Please, please let this be a return to online play closer to Black Arrow. It was all downhill after that one. BA had everything, good maps, headshots that worked, no silly body armour, no shotgun deaths from across the other side of the map. It was perfect.

    In fact, just remake the engine for the 360 and I'd probably buy it again and be perfectly happy.

  • BuddyChrist #44 11 months ago

    I sense SSX style quick-change:

    "moral choices? Civilian bomb vest? No! We have gone for the... Erm ... Majority vote... Yeah... What actually worked in our games"