Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six is a media franchise created by American author Tom Clancy about a fictional internationalcounter-terroristunit called "Rainbow". The franchise began with Clancy's novel Rainbow Six, which was adapted into a series of tactical first-person shooter video games.Rainbow Six describes Rainbow as an international counter-terrorism operation hosted by NATO and funded by money funneled through the U.S. Department of the Interior. The base of operations for Rainbow is located in Hereford, England, due to the United Kingdom being one of the most accessible countries in the world and having one of the world's foremost special forces units. Most of the characters in Rainbow Six are American or British, though the NATO countries of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Canada, and the non-NATO ally of Israel have at least one representative each. Clancy describes the structure of Rainbow as having one Director, who oversees the entire operation, and one Deputy Director, who is second in command. Rainbow is portrayed as the "blacker than black" operations, and it works off its very own intelligence service which has intelligence contacts all over the world. In the book, when Rainbow is called upon for help from another country's government to deal with a terrorist situation, usually only one of the two teams will be sent, but in some situations, both will be sent. Both teams have an officer as team leader and a senior NCO as second in command. Not including the team leader, each team is made up of ten men. Rainbow also has a standard-issue weapons kit. Each team has two snipers. In the video games, Rainbow is portrayed differently. John Clark is still the leader for most of the series, but is supported by a set of other key staff and advisers who vary from game to game. As of Rogue Spear, the unit has 30 operatives, including members from NATO countries and from non-NATO countries. For each mission in the first three games, a maximum of eight operatives can be deployed and can be split into a maximum of five teams. Weapons, uniforms, and equipment are less standardized and are instead chosen to suit the operative and the mission.
Novel
The novel, Rainbow Six, was written by Tom Clancy and published in 1998. The novel focuses on John Clark, Ding Chavez, and a fictional multinational counter-terrorist organization named Rainbow.
Video games
The first game was developed by Red Storm Entertainment, while the novel was being written. The game later spawned a number of sequels and expansion packs. Red Storm was later acquired by Ubisoft, who currently develops and publishes the games. Mobile phone versions of the game are developed and published by Gameloft. Rainbow Six and its sequels defined the tactical shooter genre, forcing players to focus more time and effort on stealth, teamwork, and tactics rather than on sheer firepower. With some of the more recent releases however, the games have taken on more of a "mainstream" first-person shooter approach in an attempt to appeal to a wider audience. After was cancelled, the following game, Rainbow Six Siege, would reboot the franchise.
A South Korean-only PC game called was created for the South Korean market by KAMA Digital Entertainment. The game boasted South Korean Rainbow operatives and weapons with a different story and interface. It was not sold outside South Korea.
