A modder has combined the early Rainbow Six games into a single 56-mission campaign.
Rainbow Six Black Ops 2.0 is a total conversion for Rogue Spear: Black Thorn, Red Storm Entertainment's 2001 standalone add-on for Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear.
Modder Menrva built upon a fan-made compilation released in 2014 to create what they called "the ultimate Rainbow Six experience".
The Rainbow Six titles included are:
- Rainbow Six (1998)
- Rainbow Six: Eagle Watch (1999)
- Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear (1999)
- Rainbow Six: Urban Operations (2000)
- Rainbow Six: Covert Ops Essentials (2000)
- Rainbow Six: Black Thorn (2001)
- Rainbow Six: Take Down - Missions in Korea (2001)
The exclusive Korean-made content released with Urban Operations and Take Down is included "coherently" in its own 12-mission campaign. "For the first time, all Korean text from Take Down has been translated to English and the Korean-made missions form their own campaign, separate from the main Rainbow Six experience," Menrva explained.
Elsewhere, there are bug and crash fixes, restored sound files, and all campaign missions are unlocked by default and available with all difficulty levels. The video below shows off gameplay:
This is a standalone mod, which means you do not need Rogue Spear, Urban Ops and Black Thorn to get it to work.
Menrva admitted this puts Black Ops 2.0 in a "grey area".
"I'd like to implement some checks requiring users to own at least one of the Rogue Spear games, as I don't like to be in a grey area to be honest, but they are no longer sold officially from what I see and are freely available in other legitimate gaming sites," they said.
"If Rogue Spear ever gets on GOG.com, I will modify the installation process accordingly."
For now, then, Rainbow Six Black Ops 2.0 certainly offers a blast from the past - and in the case of the first Rainbow Six game, a 23-year-old blast from the past.
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