Hands-on: Black Thorn

Ubi Soft was displaying a number of its games at a recent press event, one of which was Tom Clancy's Rogue Spear: Black Thorn, the upcoming stand-alone mission pack for Rogue Spear. Black Thorn was created in direct response to fan demand for specific types of weapons and maps, and a new storyline involving copycat terrorists is also included in the game. The setup screens and in-game interface are nearly identical to the ones found in Rogue Spear, so fans of the previous game can jump right into the game and not worry about having to get used to any substantial new features. But as previously noted, there are a number of new weapons to cycle through in the setup screen, including some highly requested weapons such as the FAMAS assault rifle. There are also 10 new single-player and 6 new multiplayer maps.

One of the maps we got to play through takes place in the Alaskan wilderness, where an enemy base is located. After moving in from the outside area, you find a series of winding hallways with enemy troops located in areas that prevent you from just running in with guns blazing. In fact, if you don't take a stealth approach or make sure that you have a wide perimeter, enemies will kneel, wait behind a corner, and fire the second they see you. This happens quite often on the inside of the base since enemy soldiers are in such close proximity to one another. In addition, when you're walking outside, you have to be aware of snipers at all times. In previous maps, multiplayer matches tended to last longer simply because the levels were designed in such a manner that facilitated taking a slower approach, but now the development team wants to encourage faster gameplay. So, many of the multiplayer maps have been specifically designed to encourage a quicker pace while still maintaining Rainbow Six's style of gameplay.

There's also a new multiplayer mode to accompany the other new features in Black Thorn. A multiplayer mode called lone wolf gives one player access to an entire arsenal while the other players are only equipped with a pistol. The players with pistols have to hunt down the player with all the weapons, and if the lone wolf is killed, then another player becomes the lone wolf in the next round. The development team wants to emphasize that the lone wolf can use any number of different strategies ranging from sniping to taking a proactive seek-and-destroy approach.

Development on Black Thorn started around the end of last year at Red Storm, and the game should be ready for release in October. For more information, take a look at our previous coverage of the game.