Ubisoft and Netflix have announced that Rainbow Six SMOL, the spin-off of the venerable Tom Clancy sub-series, is now available on Android and iOS.
Rainbow Six SMOL takes the once realism-focused tactical FPS series and shrinks it down to cartoon-ish proportions. You command a squad of counterterrorists as they march around procedurally generated stages, blasting everything in sight. The press release suggests that you can take a sneak approach, but there are a lot of explosions in the trailer that suggest that’s unlikely.
I used to love Rainbow Six back in its pre-Ubisoft days. Even following Red Storm’s acquisition, I frequently returned to it straight up through its bastardization in the Rainbow Six Vegas games. I fell off that after Ubisoft did what Ubisoft does and sucked a lot of the color out of the games, which is weird to say about tactical shooters.
Rainbow Six SMOL, however, actually looks like it could be fun. The trailer shows off a good flow of action and demonstrates some of its features, like a fog of war that obscures everything your characters can’t see at the moment. It still looks like a far cry from its tactical roots, but it doesn’t look like it completely excludes its DNA. I think it’s a bit troubling to depict something like counterterrorism with such cartoonish glee. That’s some dystopian territory we walked into, but that’s video games for you.
Seriously, though, I’m typically allergic to mobile games, but this looks like something I want to try. The press release says that it’s available exclusively to Netflix members, so it might be worth a shot. Assuming I don’t just forget about it moments after posting this article, which is always a risk.
Rainbow Six SMOL is available now for Android and iOS exclusively for Netflix members.
