Rainbow 6: Patriots development team restructured [update: Ubisoft partially confirms]
When it was officially revealed last year, pretty much everyone was taken aback by Rainbow 6: Patriots. Early footage and our own experience with the game delved deep into a moral gray area, putting the very real issue of civilian death directly into players' hands -- even to the point of asking players to eliminate civilians for the sake of the greater good.
The new direction was undecidedly dark, possibly too dark for Ubisoft, according to a report from Game Informer. A GI source states that Ubisoft has all but gutted the development team at Ubisoft Montreal, pulling creative director David Sears, narrative director Richard Rouse III, lead designer Philippe Therien and animation director Brent George off of Rainbow 6: Patriots. It's not clear exactly what this means for the project going forward, but it would definitely seem to indicate a radical change in direction for the potentially controversial title.
We've contacted Ubisoft for comment.
Update: Ubisoft has responded to the matter, stating that David Sears has indeed been replaced as creative director. The new creative director is Jean-Sebastien Decant. According to his Linkedin profile, Decant recently served as creative director for Driver: San Francisco and also as narrative director for Far Cry 3.
Ubisoft made no mention of the other rumored staff changes, stating only that "the development team is still hard at work to deliver the next installment of the revered Tom Clancy series and more details on the game will be revealed at a later date."
