Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow ships

The Xbox-only Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow has shipped to stores, Ubisoft announced today. In this edition of the action series, Team Rainbow is sent to the Black Sea to protect the oil-rich regions and to stop terrorists from seizing weapons of mass destruction. The game is rated "M" for Mature and retails for $39.99.

Black Arrow is perhaps best described as a stand-alone expansion to last year's Rainbow Six 3, which was the first R6:3 game to see release on a console. (It was initially released on the Xbox, and then it was released on the PlayStation 2 and GameCube.) The game features improved enemy artificial intelligence and adds a split-screen co-op mode for the campaign missions. Black Arrow will also be one of the first games to take advantage of the new Xbox Live 3.0 features, which include user-created tournaments and in-game messaging.

For more information, check out GameSpot's recent preview of Black Arrow, and be sure to check back with us for our forthcoming review of the game.