The New Rainbow Six Game Is Delayed, But That May Actually Be A Good Thing

Summary Delay in Ubisoft's upcoming Rainbow Six game is well-received by players, indicating potential positivity.

Fan sentiment leans towards Ubisoft focusing efforts on other projects instead of AAA mobile games.

Ubisoft's success with XDefiant suggests prioritizing AAA titles for consoles or PC over mobile platforms.

Ubisoft has announced a delay for its upcoming Rainbow Six game, but the response from players suggests this may be a good thing. Rainbow Six has been a popular IP under Ubisoft's "Tom Clancy" banner since the first game in the series launched in 1998. Since then, the series has spawned 15 titles, including its live service title, Rainbow Six Siege, which held a large number of returning players since its 2015 launch but was recently the source of controversy when Ubisoft announced a paid membership subscription for the game.

In Ubisoft's first-quarter earnings report for 2024, the studio revealed the changes to the release dates for its free-to-play mobile titles, Rainbow Six Mobile and The Division Resurgence. While The Division Resurgence had a vague 2024 release window, Rainbow Six Mobile was initially expected to launch in September 2024. However, both titles will now reportedly be released sometime after March 31, 2025.

Rainbow Six Mobile is a 5v5 competitive FPS, while The Division Resurgence is a third-person, open-world shooter RPG.

Both titles were announced back in 2022, and have hosted closed betas, showing they were quite far into development. However, the reasoning behind these days is to provide their development teams with the "necessary time to ensure that these experiences deliver on expectations with optimized KPIs in the context of a demanding yet very large market."

Related The Best Tom Clancy Games From The Franchise's Golden Era In the mid-to-late 2000s, Tom Clancy dominated modern military gaming. With a new Splinter Cell coming, it's worth revisiting the series' golden age.

Fan Sentiment Suggests Ubisoft's Better Off Focusing On Projects Elsewhere

Some AAA-Type Mobile Games Haven't Been As Successful As Some Studios Hoped In Recent Years

When Game File's Stephen Totilo took to X to share the news, it was hardly met with sorrow. Some of the comments on his post hoped the games would fail so resources wouldn't get "wasted" on mobile any further, with another stating that they would have much preferred the recently canceled The Division: Heartland over The Division: Resurgence.

Ubisoft's recent foray into mobile ports hasn't been as successful either, with reports that the iPhone and iPad port of last year's Assassin's Creed: Mirage has had low sales. This isn't just the case with Ubisoft titles either, as the platforms' versions of Death Stranding, Resident Evil 4 Remake, and Resident Evil Village have all severely underperformed despite the newer devices' M1 chip's gaming capabilities being a selling point (via Game Rant). Instead, more indie titles have seen success, suggesting that those who want to play larger AAA titles would rather do so on consoles or PC.

If so, it might actually be wiser for Ubisoft to focus on developing its AAA titles for these platforms rather than mobile. The studio reported a "solid start" to the current financial year with net bookings "above target" following disappointing results last year, and credited much of this to the launch of its free-to-play shooter XDefiant, which saw 10 million active players within its first two weeks of release. With these kinds of statistics, maybe it is for the best that Rainbow Six Mobile and The Division Resurgence are delayed for now.

Sources: Ubisoft, Stephen Totilo/X, Game Rant