Domestic terrorism isn’t something that has been touched upon in fiction very often. There are a few properties that come to mind that deal with it, such as the film Arlington Road with Jeff Bridges and Tim Robbins or the Lee Child novel, Die Trying.

Rainbow 6: Patriots will be dealing with this particularly difficult subject matter and giving the player a pretty enlightening and at the same time disturbing look into domestic terrorists.

Narrative director, Richard Rouse, and creative director, David Sears for Rainbow 6: Patriots sat down and gave their two cents on the matter to Game Informer - discussing how the plot was developed as well as how choices made by the player will be presented within the plot. Needless to say, the story is going to be rather different than most first person shooters. For a small refresher on the game’s general storyline, check out the original Rainbow 6: Patriots announcement.

In the target gameplay video released earlier in the month, we were shown how the team wanted to tell the story - from multiple angles: the civilian’s perspective of seeing a clandestine counter-terrorism organization running down the streets, what could be one of the terrorists, and of course, one of the Rainbow operative. Ubisoft is taking a sort of fight-fire-with-fire approach in how Rainbow will be dealing with the True Patriots threat - individuals who are well versed in the tradecraft to run a homegrown terrorist operation for perhaps the most frightening reasons, what they believe to be a patriotic act.

Rouse and Sears are working to ensure the time you spend with Rainbow 6: Patriots will be filled with tension, accomplishing this goal by severely limiting the amount of traditional cutscenes. As seen in the target demo video, the player is controlling the kidnapped man for quite some time. By not taking away player control, Ubisoft hopes that players will not be taken out of the experience. For one of the best examples of this kind of storytelling, check out Heavy Rain, a game Sears mentioned specifically as an inspiration to Rainbow 6.

In a year where a lot of first person shooters are all about giving you the most realistic/authentic experience they can, without sacrificing fun, Rainbow 6 might be turning a shooter into an interesting storytelling device. It is hard to watch that initial demo video and not be throttled by the overwhelming sense of tension and dread that’s running throughout. If that’s what the game is going to be like a majority of the time, Ubisoft’s going to be gaining a lot of attention within the industry and from fans.

Rainbow 6: Patriots releases in 2013 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

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Source: Game Informer