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![A video game scene showing cartoonish characters in a battle. A central armored character charges forward while others shoot from various directions. Health and ammo indicators are visible on the screen.](https://cdn.statically.io/img/dnm.nflximg.net/api/v6/2DuQlx0fM4wd1nzqm5BFBi6ILa8/AAAAQVIJGBrkSY1F3ts--SEhw21lrHnAUQ7rh1aZrkWh3LnumhEpiRw02Flb-qaqtnlRjV57SKLT1sTnuYK8lLkWcJ5EwTb13fqVPgOqsROkYsDzOZtAn9tOfCZbM_NHP6fZCDnOdmSsGUIHcKwBzA.jpg?r=15c)
Often, popular console and PC titles that have been ported to portable platforms become watered-down versions of their former selves. The best mobile titles, however, skirt this pitfall by forgoing direct adaptations in favor of producing fresh spins on the source material. Rainbow Six: SMOL fits as firmly as a flak jacket into this latter category.
Make no mistake, this Netflix-exclusive take on Tom Clancy’s long-running tactical shooter series is locked and loaded with familiar elements. But while SMOL tasks you with breaching doors, diffusing bombs, and rescuing hostages, it also has you doing so from behind the skills of a cardboard soldier that’d look more at home on the back of a cereal box than on the battlefield.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. If you’ve previously enjoyed Rainbow Six’s hardcore action but felt it would benefit from more, say, bullet-propelling gnomes, read on for all the intel on this absurdly awesome mash-up.
Based on the Tom Clancy series of the same name, Rainbow Six: SMOL lets players assume the roles of different counterterrorism specialists. Armed with advanced weaponry, cool gadgets, and the ability to kick down doors with all the force of any angry rampaging bull, these skilled operatives assassinate high-value targets, escort hostages to extraction points, dismantle explosives, defend precious resources, and generally pull off the sort of military heroics typically reserved for big-screen blockbusters.
Despite its high-octane action, pulse-spiking stakes, and life-and-death scenarios, SMOL looks a lot like a Saturday morning cartoon. Its colors pop with vibrancy, its characters appear to be crafted from construction paper, and its story is brimming with silliness — like projectile-powering garden fairies. So while SMOL is a lightning-paced shooter that could teach John Wick a few tricks, it has also traded its source material’s clip-emptying realism and grittiness for a goofy charm that’ll almost make you forget the fate of the world is in your hands.
Rainbow Six: SMOL presents players with a sprawling, mission-packed map just begging to be conquered. Upon selecting a new Rainbow squad recruit, you’ll pick primary objectives and unleash all kinds of hell in highly destructible, enemy-occupied levels. As you progress through its bite-sized scenarios, a steady stream of upgrades, unlocks, buffs, and other role-playing game-flavored perks ensure your tiny, terrorist-thwarting operative grows stronger with each hostage secured, bomb defused, and evil dictator vanquished.
But even through its hails of gunfire, careening extraction vehicles, and screen-filling explosions, SMOL never drops its silly facade. That is, until its unforgiving roguelike leanings put your beloved protagonist in the ground … permanently. For all its lighthearted shenanigans, the game pulls no punches when your super-soldier gasps their last breath; losing a character you’ve sunk an hour or so leveling up just means starting fresh with another recruit. Thankfully, moving on is made a bit easier by the fact that your new soldier’s personal stat screen might reveal their fondness for fish and chips and a belief in fairy-tale creatures.
Beyond its world-saving objectives, SMOL is pretty unrecognizable from the series’ most recent console and PC iteration, Rainbow Six: Siege. The Netflix exclusive not only trades the source material’s more tactical skirmishes for guns-blazing firefights, but it also pulls back the camera, providing a wider, top-down perspective versus an up-close, first-person view of the bullet-whizzing action.
SMOL also forgoes Siege’s squad-based, online multiplayer matches for a lone-wolf campaign. That said, players won’t be braving the game’s increasingly challenging missions entirely by themselves. SMOL may not put you in the combat boots of Siege’s beloved operatives, but it does allow you to recruit some of them to your squad.
More like AI companions than full-on teammates, these familiar faces — albeit reimagined in SMOL’s papercraft-y style — include Sledge, Valkyrie, and several more favorites whom franchise fans have probably kicked a few doors down with. Best of all, these seasoned soldiers come with their own RPG-like elements and progression, complete with special skills, upgrade paths, and other perks that complement your own class-based character’s death-dealing discipline.
Of course, in keeping with SMOL’s subversive take on the series, you’re more likely to meet Cupcake — a penguinlike wizard peddling permanent, magic book–powered upgrades — before reconnecting with any of Siege’s hardened professionals.
Right now. Netflix subscribers can download Rainbow Six: SMOL via the App Store or Google Play store to their mobile device and play ad-free, with no in-app purchases and no extra fees.
Netflix subscribers can play Rainbow Six: SMOL on an iPhone or iPad running iOS/iPadOS 15 or later or an Android phone or tablet running Android 8.0 or later with 2GB of RAM.
Rainbow Six: SMOL is rated 12+, and is suitable for those aged 12 and older.
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