Rainbow Six SMOL Makes Tom Clancy’s Shooter Unexpectedly Cute

There’s a new Rainbow Six game out today, but it’s not like any previous entry in Ubisoft’s long-running tactical shooter franchise. Instead, this new entry, Rainbow Six SMOL, is a top-down, cartoony, roguelite mobile shooter exclusive to Netflix subscribers.

This new Rainbow Six spin-off was first revealed on February 20 during the Rainbow Six Siege Invitational happening in São Paulo, Brazil. While it does feature some familiar faces from Siege, this isn’t a direct sequel of that game, but instead a new spin-off based on the Rainbow Six franchise.

Ubisoft describes SMOL as a “top-down isometric rogulelite shooter” that features a “tiny, funny, whimsical” spin on the Tom Clancy Rainbow Six universe. Out now on iOS and Android, SMOL has players controlling a squad of R6 operators as they take on different missions around the world. Each operator has their own weapons, bonuses, and unique abilities. Ubisoft says players will have to build squads from recruited operators to make the perfect team for each mission.

“We saw an opportunity here to widen the audience a bit, with a more approachable take on the Rainbow Six universe,” creative director Renaud Forestié told The Verge.

Like Rainbow Six Siege, SMOL includes highly destructible environments, letting players approach each mission differently based on their play style. Wanna go in heavy and loud? You can do that and break down all the walls that get in your way. Wanna be quiet and sneak around? You can do that too, provided you have the right team and operators.

This is a roguelite, which is a bit of a nebulous term these days, but in this case, it means that after each successful mission players can use earned XP and credits to unlock new upgrades and weapons for their operators. However, if an operator dies, that’s it. They are dead and gone forever. Ubisoft says losing is “not recommended.”

Something to keep in mind: Because this is a Netflix-exclusive game there are no in-game microtransactions to deal with here (though that rule might change one day…) So everything in SMOL is unlocked and earned through gameplay. Which is nice, but I’m a bit sad to see this locked behind a Netflix account. I’d rather just spend $15 on it and play it on my PC or console. Hopefully, that becomes an option later.

Rainbow Six SMOL is out now on Android and iOS.

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