Rainbow Six Tactics is pushing Ubisoft’s long-running shooter series into turn-based strategy, with game director Martial Potron describing a development shift toward more explicit and predictable tactical systems. The upcoming spin-off is scheduled to launch in 2027 for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S.
Lessons from Mario + Rabbids
The team drew on Ubisoft’s experience with Mario + Rabbids, particularly through level designers who had worked on that turn-based series. According to Potron, that experience helped the developers understand how tactical movement, positioning and decision-making can be measured while designing levels.
A different kind of Rainbow Six
Rather than preserve the first-person structure associated with Rainbow Six, the developers chose a turn-based format because they considered the franchise’s core identity inherently tactical. The game is therefore borrowing what the team sees as the series’ underlying tactical character while changing how players interact with it.
From cinematic behavior to fixed rules
Potron contrasted the new approach with design habits developed during his work on Ghost Recon. In that style of game, enemy behavior and lethality can be adjusted to create a more cinematic experience. Rainbow Six Tactics instead requires actions and consequences to be clearer, giving players a more chess-like system in which positioning and choices are intended to be easier to read.
A substantial development change
The shift affects the team’s established design methods as much as the game’s genre. Potron said he had to reconsider habits built over 15 years of development work, reflecting the difference between staging a convincing action sequence and constructing a tactical encounter governed by precise rules.
AI-generated editorial illustration; not a documentary photograph.
SIGNAL TITANS
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