Tom Clancy Shared Universe

The Tom Clancy games need a reboot. Rainbow Six, Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon all take place in the same universe and make slight references to each other but other than that they don’t really interact. I think it’s considered that The Division takes place in a different Tom Clancy universe considering the story and the fact that, well no, it’s the STORY. The other three are kind of struggling in that department; Rainbow being multiplayer only, Splinter Cell being MIA and Ghost Recon using old story lines badly. What I’m looking for is a shared universe where the events of one game bleed into the others or even if the different teams sometimes work together. Ghost Recon Wildlands and the other that shall remain nameless each had a mission with Sam Fisher but it wasn’t anything too exciting. I think the Rainbow 6 Siege tie in with Wildlands was pretty good though. Aside from when I got Caveira stuck on a rock and couldn’t complete the mission… but… anyways.

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 had a mission where your character was attacking a warehouse or something alone and another person showed up cause they also had a mission though separate and he was something like a Third Echelon agent, kinda. Splinter Cell Conviction had a segment that felt like Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell Blacklist had a few FPS missions that made me feel like Rainbow, though that could have just been some subtle easement to the multiplayer. Ghost Recon Future Soldier had a solo, no alarm mission that felt very Splinter Cell and in some DLC, I think, one mission had you rescue someone and he asked if you were from Voron, the Russian equivalent of Third Echelon. (EDIT: While playing through a little bit of GRFS recently there's a mission where Griffin tells you they have a HAWX standing by if you need help so that's another tie in.) So there are these things here and there but I’d like something a little more fleshed out.

I feel like it might be hard to have team Rainbow and the Ghosts together since they have very different skill sets and go about missions quite differently. But I’d like to imagine something like the first part of Captain America The Winter Soldier where the Ghost team are assaulting a base and a Splinter Cell, not necessarily Sam, he is getting old after all, joins in like “hey, I’ve got something to do here also so I’ll try to help you out.” So the Ghost are doing their thing, the Splinter Cell is doing his thing, maybe hacking the system, opening locked doors for the Ghost and so on. The Ghost are the distraction for the Splinter Cell. So in the Ghost Recon game you’re doing your part, maybe stuck in a big room with lots of enemies waiting for the Splinter Cell agent to unlock a door so you can get out and in the Splinter Cell game you play that part out. You’re crawling through the vents, taking out people that are on security cams and hacking doors open for the Ghost. So the story that’s happening in both games are the same story but you see it from different points of view and only interact with that team maybe once or twice throughout each game. I mean, I feel this would take a lot of coordination from the dev teams but it would be really cool. I mean since the end of Blacklist you had to kill the Vice President, I think, like that had to of had some repercussions within the government and the world’s governments. Team Rainbow could’ve been sent to capture Briggs for questioning or whatever as Sam was trying to explain it to the president and Six, the head of Rainbow, that they had to make the hard decision. The mission could be a kind of cat and mouse, non-lethal exchange between Rainbow and Briggs. You as Rainbow trying to find him in the shadows, getting shocked, hearing noises and you as Briggs in the other game would be trying to hide from them. There have also been some mentions of Assassin’s Creed and Watch_Dogs being in the same universe as these other games but I don’t think it’s much more than that. There’s always been this thought though that Sam’s daughter, Sarah, would bridge the gap by being an assassin/Splinter Cell agent. So all that would be really cool but I’m super doubtful that anything like that will ever happen. Pretty sure the closest thing we’re getting to a new Splinter Cell is the Echelon class in Breakpoint. “Here you go kids, pick the Echelon class and just pretend.”

The other thing I want to touch on is the multiplayer for the Tom Clancy games. I always really enjoyed them. Siege is obviously a powerhouse right now. I had SO much fun with the Future Soldier beta. It was just nice to be able to be out back with a drone and calling out enemies and being able to help without having to be shooting like everyone else. I even made a friend during the beta. I’m really socially nervous on online games in recent years so I don’t typically play them unless I’m with my friends but the guy I played with during the beta was really cool. After the beta was done so were we but it was nice. Blacklist’s Spies VS Mercs was really cool too. Well, until the Mercs got infinite exploding drones. THAT was fun. I haven’t tried Ghost Recon’s multiplayers since Future Soldier. They could be really good for all I know. I know I heard lots of good things about Halo 5’s MP but the campaign was just so bad that it turned me off from the game completely so Breakpoint could be the same. Doubt it but, could be.

Alright that was kind of quick, had some time on my hands and was just able to knock this out. I always feel like Ubisoft’s games are really close to being amazing but they always make a poor decision here and there or hold back. I feel like it’s done on purpose just to keep us asking for more, “maybe next time will be better” but it never is or something IS better but something else isn’t. It's just, when I think of a Tom Clancy game I think of story and I just want these games to deliver better stories. What do you think? Would you like to see a Tom Clancy shared, truly shared, universe? A TCU if you will? A TCSU? These universe acronyms are getting sloppy. Looking at you Sony. Alright, maybe it’ll be more than 24 hours before I make a new post this time. Bye-bye.

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