With Ubisoft focusing on their flagship Assassin's Creed franchise and acting as a leader in developing games for new platforms and supporting motion control devices, it felt as if the Rainbow Six series had been pushed aside. Rumors back in May changed that when developer resumes suggested that another Rainbow Six title may be in development.

Five months later and thanks to a domain name registration, Ubisoft confirmed this was true with the reveal of Rainbow 6 Patriots, providing artwork and the cover art for the title along with a rough release date of 2013. Wasting no time, Ubisoft revealed a "target gameplay" trailer for Rainbow 6 Patriots a day later and today, we have new artwork and gameplay details for the next Tom Clancy game.

First, the details. In the Rainbow 6 Patriots fact sheet Ubisoft shared today, they briefly discuss some of  the game's details, beginning with the story which is inspired by real-life events and characters. The story of Patriots, as demonstrated in an impactful way in the Rainbow 6 Patriots concept trailer, aims to tell an ultra-realistic and shocking story of terrorism on the homefront.

A feature that's been sorely lacking is tactical squad management and the PC gamers out there who played the original Rainbow Six know what I'm talking about. In Patriots, players can quickly have their team act based on the situation with a press of the button and while it can't get simpler than that, the game does allow players to take "full control" of their team to plan ahead in detail.

Cover mechanics return with improvements and as emphasized in the trailer, there will be rappelling and breaching scenarios and other similar tactical situations we've seen in previous installments. There will also be thermal scanning for players to gain an edge before engaging.

On the multiplayer side, team-based play will be encouraged and rewarded thanks to new game mechanics but the coolest feature may be the pre-game lobby which features a holographic map of the level to be played. This will allow teams to plan ahead and allow beginners to get an idea of the level's layout. This holographic display of the map is called the "Sandtable" and it can be seen in the gallery of concept art below.

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Note the high emphasis on the color read, presented on the character costumes, in the tactical displays from the earlier concept trailer and even on the holograph. It works well in contrast with the cyan color theme utilized in the Ghost Recon series.

We've reached out to Ubisoft to find out whether or not the multiplayer component of Rainbow 6 Patriots includes co-operative play, either in separate modes or in the game's campaign and will update if we find out more. On the flipside, Ubisoft's repeatedly delayed Ghost Recon: Future Soldier supports 4-player campaign co-op so there's a good chance something similar will be included in Patriots.

Rainbow 6 Patriots releases for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 sometime in 2013.

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