Red Storm Entertainment
The North Carolina studio co-founded by Tom Clancy that created Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon.
Red Storm Entertainment is an American game studio in Cary, North Carolina, owned by Ubisoft since August 2000. It was founded in November 1996 by the novelist Tom Clancy, Doug Littlejohns and the software company Virtus Corporation, and it built its name on games in the Tom Clancy's line. Its Rainbow Six defined the tactical first-person shooter, and it created Ghost Recon, which won several Game of the Year awards. In March 2026 Ubisoft cut 100 jobs at the studio and said it was ending game development there.
Quick Facts
- Industry
- Video games
- Founded
- 13 November 1996
- Founders
- Tom Clancy, Doug Littlejohns
- Headquarters
- Cary, North Carolina
- Parent
- Ubisoft (2000–present)
Facts from the source article.
Background
The studio grew out of Tom Clancy's SSN, a game Clancy built with Virtus Corporation over six years. The day after it shipped on November 12, 1996, Clancy and Virtus announced Red Storm, named after his novel Red Storm Rising. It absorbed Virtus Studios, starting with nineteen staff, with Clancy as chairman and former Royal Navy commodore Doug Littlejohns as president and chief executive. Its first release was Tom Clancy's Politika in 1997. Rainbow Six (1998) made the company's commercial breakthrough by rewarding patience and planning instead of run-and-gun play, and it popularised phrases like tango down.
Did You Know?
- Dominant Species was one of the first 3D real-time strategy games.
- In 2003 Ubisoft merged its Raleigh studio, Sinister Games, into Red Storm.
- A free-to-play spinoff, Tom Clancy's The Division Heartland, was cancelled in May 2024.
More in Development & Legacy
Elsewhere in Ghost Recon
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