UPDATE 22ND MARCH 2021: Ubisoft has responded to the Rainbow Six: Parasite gameplay leak, promising more news later this year.
"We can confirm this is a glimpse of our upcoming Rainbow Six game," Ubisoft said in a statement issued to Eurogamer. "Recently, we ran an internal test for the game and unfortunately some of the details became public. This clip is a work in progress gameplay footage. We'll share more details about the game later this year."
ORIGINAL STORY 20TH MARCH 2021: Over an hour of gameplay from a Rainbow Six: Parasite technical test has leaked. It's the first time we've seen the game running in any form.
The gameplay, spotted by VGC, was streamed live on Facebook Gaming from someone who claimed to have recently received an invitation to play a Rainbow Six: Parasite technical test on PC. Clearly, they didn't seem to take much notice of Ubisoft's non-disclosure agreement.
The same gameplay was subsequently uploaded to YouTube, although I suspect it's not long for this world:
Parasite is the codename for what was once called Rainbow Six Quarantine. Last month, Ubisoft said this original name would change as a result of the ongoing pandemic.
"While we recently shared that we will be changing the name of Rainbow Six Quarantine, 'Parasite' is only a placeholder that our internal teams use," a Ubisoft spokesperson told Eurogamer at the time.
"Recently, we ran an internal test for the game and some of its details became public. We can confirm this is a glimpse of the upcoming game, and we will share more details, including the official name, soon."
Rainbow Six: Parasite is a squad-based first-person shooter. From the leaked gameplay we see the tutorial, or the "simulator" as it's called. The player picks an operator to play with from a handful of options, messes about with their loadout (weapons have stats and attachments and all modern shooter cons), and then ventures out into the tutorial.
The zombie-like enemies are called "archaeans", and there's the Rainbow Six Siege-style weapon lean fans will be familiar with. The vibe here appears to be creepy zombie shooter. The game encourages the player to kill one of these archaeans with a silent takedown to avoid alerting other enemies to their presence. The tutorial voice acting is clearly placeholder.
The identity of the leaker is clearly visible in the footage - and at the end of the video we see that they've been suspended for 24 hours for cheating, but they're still able to play training mode. It's a damaging leak for Ubisoft - I imagine the publisher will be furious Parasite or whatever it ends up being called made its gameplay debut in this way.
Ubisoft originally announced Quarantine back at E3 2019 with a couple of gritty videos. Last October, with little more revealed about the game or its development progress, Ubisoft delayed Quarantine and various other projects due to the impact of Covid.
Quarantine was originally announced for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X. Previously set for launch in 2020, it will now arrive at some point this year, though a final release date has yet to be confirmed.
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