Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Athena Sword

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield brought another installment of the tactical series to PC, one built on the slow, deliberate advance of the Rainbow unit rather than arcade action. Before every mission, the player planned routes, breach methods, and each team member's loadout, while a single poorly aimed shot could mean the operative's instant death and the end of the mission. This emphasis on realism and team tactics set the game apart from the era's competing action shooters and built it a loyal base of players who valued the tension of every single firefight more than reflexes and arcade action.

Athena Sword is an official expansion pack that adds a new set of missions, weapons, and multiplayer maps to Raven Shield without changing the game's core rules in any way — the team still plans its advance ahead of time, and losing a single operative still affects how the mission unfolds. The new campaign offers further scenarios for the Rainbow unit and builds on the original game's structure, the added weapons and equipment expand the possibilities for tactical preparation, and the new maps gave the multiplayer community fresh settings for its favorite team modes. Unlike the Xbox expansion Black Arrow, which was made exclusively for the console version of the game with different missions and a different engine, Athena Sword remains a purely PC affair building on Raven Shield and requires the base game to play. As with previous entries in the series, multiplayer remains the main draw, where the new maps expanded the offering for beloved cooperative and competitive modes alike and gave the community a reason to return to Raven Shield even a year after its release.

Why play: Athena Sword will appeal above all to players who fell in love with Raven Shield and want another helping of the same uncompromising tactical shooter without any change to its proven rules — don't expect a revolution, but an honest expansion of a beloved foundation with new missions and weapons.