Ubisoft made an unknowingly brilliant move when they teamed up with Tom Clancy to publish the original Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon games. Since then, the Tom Clancy brand has become one of its bread-winners, important enough for the publisher to buy the rights to Clancy's name, giving them even more power to utilize and exploit it for bigger things, like a rumored MMO. HAWX, like EndWar, is the introduction of a new sub-series within the franchise - building on arcadey, Ace Combat-like, flight-combat mechanics and helping bring them further into the mainstream.