

Rainbow Six is considered a milestone in the history of first-person shooters, and made a lasting impact on the then-fledgling tactical shooter genre. It sold over 200,000 copies in its first year of release, accounting to $8.86 million in revenue, and continued to sell hundreds of thousands of additional copies well into the early 2000s. For most releases, praise was directed toward gameplay, multiplayer, and immersion, while criticism mainly centered on AI issues, glitches, and the graphics and controls of some ports. Rainbow Six was released on Augto widespread critical acclaim, though the console ports received relatively lower ratings than the PC version. Red Storm developed the PC version, while all other ports were developed by their respective companies. Though his name is in the game's title, Tom Clancy's involvement in Rainbow Six's development was very minimal. The game was developed in parallel with the Rainbow Six novel, with a design philosophy of realism and strategy guiding all aspects of development however, development was stymied by several setbacks. Rainbow Six began as a concept picked by Red Storm following their formation in 1996.

The game features realistic gameplay factors and weapon lethality, forcing players to plan their approach carefully and promoting replayability for more streamlined completion. In multiplayer, players cooperate in player versus environment missions or battle to complete objectives in player versus player matches. In missions, the player controls an operative leading computer-controlled teammates as they follow the player's plan. Before each mission, the player is briefed on the situation, selects and organizes their operatives and equipment, and plans their movement through the level.


In singleplayer, the player advances through a series of missions in a campaign. Based on the Tom Clancy novel of the same name, the game follows Rainbow, a secret international counterterrorist organization, and the conspiracy they unravel as they handle a seemingly random spike in terrorism. It is the first installment in the Rainbow Six series. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six is a 1998 tactical shooter video game developed and published by Red Storm Entertainment for Microsoft Windows, with later ports for the Nintendo 64, PlayStation, Mac OS, Game Boy Color, and Dreamcast.
