Next-gen Rainbow Six hitting Vegas

Las Vegas may be called "America's Playground," but the developers at Ubisoft Montreal are putting a dead-serious spin on the metropolis also known as "Sin City." Today, Ubisoft announced its flagship studio is working on a new Rainbow Six game set in the Nevada gambling Mecca.

Titled Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas, the game will be released later this year on unspecified "next-generation and current-generation video game consoles." No specific platforms were identified, but the announcement date--3/6/06--has led many to suspect it is coming to the Xbox 360. A PC version was not mentioned.

Ubisoft's announcement had no details about Rainbow Six Vegas' gameplay, other than saying it will "push the envelope of technology through graphics, artificial intelligence, physics, and animation." It did, however, offer a few details about the game's story. After explaining that over 36.7 million people visit Las Vegas each year, the announcement rhetorically asks, "What happens when one of the world's most famous cities is held hostage by terrorists?" It then goes on to reveal that the game will follow its titular "elite counter-terrorism unit" as its members try and foil "a terrorist threat of global proportions."

GameSpot will have more details on Rainbow Six Vegas as they emerge. It is the third Tom Clancy-inspired game announced for next-generation consoles: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter will ship for the Xbox 360 on March 9, and Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent will hit the platform in September.