Since it first launched in 2015, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege has revitalized the Rainbow Six series and brought the tactical shooter back to the forefront of popularity. The first installment in the series since 2008 revolutionized the franchise with a competitive anti-terror tactical multiplayer experience. Siege offers players the choice of a full slate of playable operators, each offering unique abilities and equipment.
Six years later, the title is still updated to this day. A limited-time event released in 2018 switched up the game to a PvE mode called Outbreak where players took on other players to AI-controlled victims of a zombie epidemic.
The extreme popularity of this mode led to the 2019 announcement of a new co-op title in the universe: Rainbow Six Quarantine. Ubisoft has yet to release any additional information or show any gameplay since the title was first announced. The title is in development for PC, current-gen, and last-gen consoles, with the recent Ubisoft earning call confirming a release is coming in the first half of 2021.
The tactical co-op shooter will take place in the near future of the Rainbow Six world as operators take on a new breed of a mutated alien parasite. The game will launch players into a variety of chaotic missions for squads of players.
With total silence from the publisher since the game's initial reveal, many have speculated something was going on behind the scenes, which appears to have been proven true based on new evidence.
RAINBOW SIX QUARANTINE NO MORE
Update: Ubisoft has issued the following statement on this potential name change, saying that fans will "soon" know the official name:
“While we recently shared that we will be changing the name of Rainbow Six Quarantine, ‘Parasite’ is only a placeholder that our internal teams use. Recently, we ran an internal test for the game and some of its details became public. We can confirm this is a glimpse of the upcoming game, and we will share more details, including the official name, soon.”
MP1ST has revealed that due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Ubisoft has opted to amend the once Rainbow Six Quarantine title to Rainbow Six Parasite .
The change was confirmed by new poster artwork discovered on an unreleased PS4 build of the game, as seen below:
QUARANTINE IS A BIT TOO REAL FOR UBISOFT
The title change for Ubisoft's upcoming release shouldn't come as a surprise to many. Quarantine was announced as the game's title prior to a real global pandemic sweeping the globe, so it makes sense for the publisher to amend the title to something less applicable to the current climate.
The next title in the Rainbow Six world was totally absent from the 2020 Ubisoft showcase last summer — a decision which makes sense as the showcase came early in the pandemic and could've seemed insensitive.
Original announcements for the co-op shooter revealed a storyline of the Chimera virus sweeping a new future world, transforming people into zombified roaches. However, the word 'parasite' tends to refer to an external organism feeding off a host, not a virus.
Changing the name of the title could indicate a switch-up in the storyline of the game from a global pandemic to some kind of alien parasite infecting the world. All around, this is a smart decision for Ubisoft to distance their title from the current events of today.
Ubisoft has yet to officially comment on the change of title, however, a leak from the PlayStation Network seems to be pretty solid evidence that an announcement is coming soon.
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Parasite is set to release in the first half of 2021 on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PS4.