After months of speculation, Rainbow Six: Patriots was eventually confirmed in 2011 with a logo, a trailer and an intriguing plot about a patriotic, anti-government terrorist group. Many were excited by the long-running franchise's return, but after long stretches of silence about the title, that interest somewhat fizzled out.

Fan support was piqued once more however, in spite of the radio silence from the publisher (and amidst rumours that Rainbow Six: Patriots had been cancelled), with mentions of the game on a developer’s professional profile. There was even staff shuffling, restructuring and promises that the game would be released, all while Patriots was on shaky ground.

So shaky, in fact, that we found that the game had been canned in favor of Rainbow Six: Siege, which seems to be more of the team-based, tactical gameplay that we’re used to. But even with the heavy impact that Siege had at the Ubisoft press conference earlier this month, questions still remain about the game that so many fans were interested in playing. Finally, we have a concrete answer as to why Rainbow Six: Patriots was cancelled.

Speaking to Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Technical Artist Oliver Couture revealed that next-gen consoles were the primary reason behind the game's cancellation, explaining that the final straw on the (already rather wary) camel’s back was the need to release the game on PS4 and Xbox One too.

“To be completely transparent, I worked on Patriots — on Rainbow Six for three-and-a-half years — and Patriots was old-gen. Xbox 360 and PS3. Next-gen consoles were just around the corner, and we were like, ‘OK, we want to also have a next-gen experience. What can we do for that?’ We were trying stuff out with destruction technology, and we realized destruction really changes the game. We tried to see how it could fit with old-gen, but it just didn’t work out. So for us it was just a better solution to clean the slate, reset, and make what’s best for the players.”

That’s not to say that all of the work on Rainbow Six: Patriots had to go to waste, though, as that’s certainly a great deal of work to dash in the bin. Specifically, the part that could be preserved for Rainbow: Six Siege is its single player, as the game has yet to find a solo counterpart to the multiplayer gameplay we saw at E3.

“We know that single-player is also an important part of the Rainbow Six experience. We understand that while this year we showed multiplayer — because we want to have fun playing against each other internally, it’s a good test to know if a game is fun — but we are 100 percent aware that single-player is a big part. We’re currently working on that too.”

What a final version of Rainbow Six: Siege’s single player mode could offer is uncertain, but fans will be curious to know which, if any, parts of Patriots will be preserved. The parallels of Patriots’ hard hitting story and the Occupy movements of 2011 (the year the game was announced) were impactful and presented in a cinematic way could have led to a fantastic game. They were also quite controversial.

“The scope of the single-player is not completely clear yet, so I cannot really elaborate on it. All I know is that the message we have on the production floor is like, ‘All the comments online, people are always talking about single-player. So we’re gonna have something for them.’ But I can’t say if it will be more cinematic [like Patriots was] yet.”

Rainbow Six: Siege isn’t scheduled to be released until sometime in 2015 (along with Ubi’s other Tom Clancy game, The Division) so there’s still plenty of time for them to show off what Siege is made of and, of course, impress us the way Rainbow Six: Patriots did so many years ago.

Rainbow Six: Siege will release in 2015 for the PC, PS4, Xbox One.

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Source: Rock, Paper, Shotgun