Following the massive success of Rainbow Six Siege, the next entry in the tactical first-person shooter series has a lot of anticipation surrounding it. Recently, Ubisoft revealed that the upcoming Rainbow Six game has undergone its third name change since its announcement. It was first revealed as Rainbow Six Quarantine and was temporarily renamed to Rainbow Six Parasite before getting its final name: Rainbow Six Extraction.
The announcement came in the form of a teaser video in which several Ubisoft Montreal members gave a brief rundown of the game. This video comes ahead of E3 2021 where Ubisoft plans on fully revealing the game during its Ubisoft Forward event, and the title change is great news when considering the new meaning the word "quarantine" has taken on in the past year.
With the world slowly recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, many would likely find the title including the word "Quarantine" to be awkward, if not outright insensitive, given the real-world crisis that is still ongoing in many places. This decision is both socially conscious and good for marketing purposes, as the old title could have had a negative impact on sales.
Just like everything else, the gaming world was greatly impacted by COVID-19. Games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Far Cry 6 were delayed after studios were forced to transition to a work-from-home model, something that came with a slew of challenges and issues. This shift was particularly hard for major developers who have hundreds of people working on the same game, as it's harder to share assets and keep everything confidential when everyone is working remotely.
These challenges may have even led to issues with games themselves. For example, Cyberpunk 2077's notoriously messy launch could have been caused in part by developers not having access to testing kits for the console versions of the game. According to anonymous interviews with CD Projekt Red employees, developers working from home were unable to use these kits, as such hardware is not allowed to leave developer offices.
This lack of access to normal tools and development kits are larger and more obvious problems that make Rainbow Six's name change seem minor in comparison. Still, changing Quarantine to Extraction makes perfect sense. It allows the developers to talk about the game without evoking the negative feelings associated with the past year every time someone says the game's title. Despite all of the issues on the development side, the gaming industry as a whole was wildly successful and absolutely vital for many people who needed an escape from the uncertain and isolating experience that things like lockdown and quarantines have been, and with its new title, Rainbow Six Extraction has a better chance of winning over gamers.