Since his best-selling The Hunt for Red October, Tom Clancy has been known for tales of espionage, furious action and painstakingly detailed military realism. His Red Storm Entertainment, founded in 1996, brings Clancy's storytelling flair and military expertise to a new medium: videogames. In 1998, Clancy released Rainbow Six, the story of a counterterrorist strike force, as both a novel and a game. The game was a surprise hit with critics and players, finally giving gamers the kind of realism fans of Clancy's writing already knew and loved. We spoke with Clancy about Rainbow Six's upcoming sequel, realism in videogames, and R6's surprising success.

After so much success in books and film, why did you decide to form Red Storm and move into videogames? Were you a game player, or did you see it as a new medium for storytelling?
I play a few games myself, but mostly I wanted a different way in which to tell my stories. Coming up with concepts for computer games gives me another avenue of creative expression. It's not just me telling the story, it's me designing the idea for a story and letting the players write their own ending. The net result is that the game player can directly interact with the concepts, whether they bear my name or not, rather than just absorb them.

Did the idea for Rainbow Six occur to you first as a concept for a game or for a book? Will a book or movie follow Rogue Spear, and are these characters that you intend to develop?
Actually, I got the idea for the book during brainstorming with the guys at Red Storm. The Red Storm guys and I had a meeting back in October 1996 in an ale house in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, where we came up with the idea of hostage rescue game. As the creative ideas began to flow in the next few months, we decided it would be great to base a book on this team. We worked together on the storyline; I get to have a lot of creative input without having to do all of the work with the ones and zeros. I leave that to the experts at Red Storm. Some of the characters were already in my books, like Ding Chavez and John Clark. I don't discuss future works or works in progress, so you'll just have to wait and see.

Rainbow Six's innovative design and engrossing gameplay surprised a lot of people, and it ended up on almost every "game of the year" short list for '98. Were you surprised by its runaway success, or were you sure you had a hit on your hands?
When the first mission of Rainbow Six was actually coming together we really started to realize that we might have a hit on our hands, but hadn't really expected the runaway success. To date we have sold through over 700,000 copies worldwide! The main achievement of the original Rainbow Six game has been to establish a brand that we're now taking into the console market. I expect that Rainbow Six will be equally successful on those new platforms.

How important is realism in Red Storm's games? Do you think people who play your games and read your books are looking more for pure entertainment, or realistic portrayals of situations that could actually happen?
I think a little of both, but the most important thing for any game is that it is fun to play. That's really what we're trying to achieve.

How did the Rogue Spear development team incorporate realism into the game? Did they interview real counterterrorist operatives to design missions and the feel of the game?
The team had already gone through the experience of working with real counterterrorist operatives on Rainbow Six, and used that experience and the advice of special forces teams, but they did seek some additional advice for Rogue Spear as well.

Although fictional, Rainbow Six and R6: Rogue Spear deal with a terrorist threat that is frighteningly real. How do you think the world's governments can protect themselves against terrorism and exterminate the threat?
To truly feel like we're fighting terrorism, we need as much intelligence and infiltration as possible into known rivals of democracy. Once that information is collected, a sincere commitment must be made to thwart their effects through unified/joint military resolve.

The news is full of computer simulations of one kind or another being used to train new soldiers and to run test scenarios of real-life conflicts. Do you think Rogue Spear could be used as a training tool or simulator?
Yes and no. There are parts of Rogue Spear based on real-life conflicts, but the important thing for us was that the game should be fun to play. With that in mind, not everything is realistic. We did want to stress the importance of rescuing hostages, of minimizing the loss of life, and hopefully get that across to gameplayers everywhere.

What are the most significant differences between Rainbow Six and Rogue Spear?
There are far too many to mention! We completely redid the artificial intelligence, reworked the graphics renderer, and enhanced everything else. Fans of the Rainbow Six game will be pleasantly surprised by the dramatic improvements, and new players will really enjoy it.

What's next for Red Storm? Are further Rainbow Six games in the works or on the drawing board? Red Storm's recent projects have brought your signature realism to the first-person shooter and real-time strategy genres; what other types of games do you foresee exploring in future?
I don't discuss works in progress, but I will say that you'll be pleased with what's coming up in the near future from Red Storm Entertainment.