"We were tired of single-player, scripted military missions where things appear triggered by player presence," Ubisoft Montreal creative VP Lionel Raynaud told IGN. "We want to refresh that. We want the same level of intensity and surprise scripted scenes used to have, but within a multiplayer game."To that end, campaign missions can be played in any order, akin to Mega Man's open-ended level selection. Renaud said, "The way you play the missions is open, you choose the order. It’s dynamic, meaning we will bring new content as players play the mission." He did not elaborate on what that dynamism entailed, but it's likely that the environmental destruction -- which affects multiplayer level navigation and player line of sight -- will play an important role in solo sieges.
Rainbow 6 Patriots was announced back in 2011. It went dark shortly after, and in 2013, Ubisoft told IGN that Rainbow Patriots "had to be remade." By then, had already Ubisoft started shifting away from the Patriots vision, before eventually arriving at a close-quarters, attack/defend multiplayer game in Rainbow Six Siege, which has been in development for 18 months, and launches next year.
Siege has a development team of 150 strong, and it's the rare case of a Ubisoft game under the sole control of a single studio. The team at Ubisoft Montreal isn't directly developing Rainbow Six with another studio, though it's sharing technology and resources with Ubisoft as a whole.
For more on Rainbow 6 Patriots' strange history, check out House of Dreams: The Ubisoft Montreal Story. Mitch Dyer is an associate editor at IGN. He's trying to read 50 books in 2014. These are the 50. Talk to Mitch about books and other stuff on Twitter at @MitchyD and subscribe to MitchyD on Twitch.