Rainbow Six Mobile delivers tactical goodness in a bite-sized package

Ubisoft is bringing its iconic tactical shooter franchise to mobile devices with Rainbow Six Mobile. Ahead of its full launch later this year, I had the chance to play the Rainbow Six Mobile Alpha to see just how the experience transfers to the new format and walked away excited to see how the full thing comes together.

A key component of the Rainbow Six series is its stealth aspect. I was impressed with how this part of the game remains intact in R6 Mobile. While I was initially concerned that it would become a shootout in the vein of most mobile FPS games, tactility is still at the forefront. There’s a lot of sneaking around and setting up during the pre-round phase on both the offensive and defensive end.

Playing a shooter on a mobile device is a strong shift from using a keyboard and mouse or a controller, but R6 Mobile makes the transition a lot smoother with the ability to customize the touch buttons on-screen. You’re free to move around and resize most of the controls to what feels most comfortable to you. Moving around the map and firing my weapons felt as smooth as it could for playing on a tablet.

The Rainbow Six Mobile Alpha granted access to 16 of the game’s Operators, which gave me a feel for the diversity available in team composition. Just like in Siege, each Operator has their own unique ability that can give their team an advantage during combat. Some of the Operators are returning characters from R6 Siege.

While the Rainbow Six Mobile Alpha also allowed me to play two maps and two modes, it didn’t include any of the progression or customization content that will be available in the full game. This current plan is for this content to be a part of a future Alpha or Beta.

The real promise in Rainbow Six Mobile is how accurately it captures the gameplay flow and intensity of a classic R6 match. The tense moments late-game, the chess-like back and forth early on, it’s all there. It’ll be interesting to see how the full release further delivers on that problem when it launches for iOS and Android devices later this year.

These impressions are based on Alpha build access provided by the publisher. Rainbow Six Mobile launches later this year for iOS and Android devices.