Little has been said about the upcoming Rainbow 6: Patriots anti-terrorism shooter since word came that three of the top developers had left the team in March, but Ubisoft's CEO tells Polygon that the game is still in development and could be headed for a next-gen release.
"The only thing I can say is that we have a good team working on it, and it's really looking good," Ubisoft chairman and CEO Yves Guillemot told Polygon. "So when it will come, it will surprise the industry."
When asked if the game will be a next generation title, Guillemot said he couldn't confirm that but "there's a good chance it can be."
Rainbow 6: Patriots first came to light last year when a video showing off the game's preliminary target gameplay footage was leaked to Kotaku. The early, internal video showed off a game that hoped to push the envelope on morality.
In the game, international counter-terrorism unit, codenamed Rainbow, is called in to New York to capture or kill a home-grown terrorist group called the "True Patriots." The group is attacking the city on behalf of the victims of economic inequality.
The leaked video showed a man being forced to hold the detonator for a bomb strapped to his body. If he releases the trigger early his family will be killed. When the player takes control of the team, they have to at some point decide whether to toss the man from a bridge or allow his bomb to detonating killing those around him. Kotaku's sources said that those decisions will heavily impact the course of the game.
Guillemot said that the decision to weave morality and tough decisions into the fabric of a shooter was the result of a lot of internal discussions.
"It's for sure something we spoke a lot about," he said. "You have to make decisions and that implies lots of ethical choices. In the decisions you make, we have to define where you can go, and there were lots of discussions on what's possible, what should be possible, what shouldn't be possible. But that's what is interesting with the concept - being able to give a choice to the person who is playing."
Rainbow 6: Patriots remains listed as a 2013 game in development for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.