Welcome, this guide will help you setup the game in it's best form using a collection of mods. The game will play very similarly to modern tactical shooters like Ready or Not or R6: Siege. We will start with getting the game setup with mods and using a borderless window then move on to game basics and tutorials. By the end of this guide you will see why this game has been considered the best tactical shooter for over 20 years.

First things first, after installing the game you're going to want to change the compatibility mode for the the .exe file in the game directory.

1. Right click the game in your steam library and select manage and then browse local files.



2. Once you're the game files, open up the system sub-folder

3. In the system sub-folder find the RavenShield.exe and right click it. Select properties.



4. From there select the compatibility tab and checkmark "Run this program in compatibility mode for:" and select Windows 7. You can change this to Windows XP SP3 if that runs better for you.



Done.

Now we will start the Modding process. This mod compilation was based on juguLator01's mod guide which you can find here: Jug's Modding Guide

The mod pack I will provide will include everything in this guide + much more including skins, maps, DLC and other improvements. If you prefer to mod the game yourself, you can visit the link above and follow Jug's guide.


Download Link:
Rainbow Six 3 Overhaul Mod Pack[drive.google.com]

This pack is a compilation of all the best mods from modb and includes the Supply Drops Mod by Twi. Credits go to those who made the mods.



1. Download the mod pack

2. Open the compressed .rar file using WinRar or 7zip

3. Drag all of the files inside the .rar file into the main game directory.


Done.

The game can get annoying to play if this step is skipped. The screen will flash and flicker when switching between the game and the menus. Setting the game up with DXwnd will allow you to play the game much more seamlessly.

1. Download the latest DXwnd from Sourceforge[sourceforge.net]

2. Once installed, before anything, add these commands to your launch options by right clicking the game in your library and selecting properties. Make sure the file path is your actual path to the the DXwnd.exe. At the end add %command% and -norunaway


3. Now clicking start on the game will bring you to the DXwnd launcher where we will tweak the settings for Rainbow Six. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE DXWND OPENED BY STARTING RAINBOW SIX ON STEAM. OTHERWISE IT WONT SAVE.

4. Once in DXwnd Click the edit tab and select add.



5. Name the game on the first bar and find the path to RavenShield.exe on the second. Copy all of the settings I have here. Change the W and H numbers to whatever your screen resolution is at the bottom left.



6. Copy all settings under the Video tab



7. Copy all settings under the Mouse tab



8. Copy all settings under the Libs tab



9. Exit out of Dxwnd. You should get this popup. CLICK YES. DXwnd will otherwise not save your settings.



If you do not get this popup when exiting, make sure DXwnd is completely closed using the up arrow on the taskbar.

10. Start the game up. This will load DXwnd. Start the game from DXwnd and the game should be in borderless fullscreen. If the screen looks wierd or glitched, try pressing ALT+ENTER.

Done.

We are almost done with setup. Last thing you need to do is startup the Supply Drops Mod. This mod adds tons of custom content such as guns, optics, and skins.

1. From the main menu select options



2. Select custom game. From there, first double click the third option "Unlock Mods! (you only need to do this the first time.) and then double click the very last option called "Supply Drops for Single Player."



Unfortunately you will need to select Supply Drops every time you start the game up.

Done.

From here on out will be a guide on the basics and hidden tips in the game. If you are interested in how to use planning and keybinds, that is up next. Otherwise this is the end of the modding guide.

Gamemode Explanations:



Practice Mission: basically a level select for campaign missions. This includes gamemodes like bomb defusal, hostage rescue, and other exclusive gamemodes.

Lone Wolf: Get to the extraction zone alone without dying.

Terrorist Hunt: Kill all of the terrorists in the map.

Hostage Rescue: Save the hostages in the map and bring them to the extraction zone.

Assassination: Kill your target in the map without getting caught or alerting the enemies.

Countdown: Complete the mission under a time limit

Hostage Random: Hostage rescue but with randomized hostage locations.
Warning: This mode has some crashing issues so if you play it, make sure to save your plans.

Stealth Wolf: Get to the extraction zone without alerting the enemies..

Defend the VIP: Eliminate the enemies in waves while protecting the VIP. Build fences to defend yourself.

The mod pack includes the 50 tango mod by arch now allows the player to spawn up to 50 terrorists instead of the vanilla 35. For balancing reasons, 35 terrorists is recommended.

Once you selected your map, terrorist #, and difficulty you will move on to the loadout room which looks like this:



1. Select your operators from the left panel and assign them to one or more squads.

2. The 3 items at the top of the middle panel allow you to change your weapon, optic, and gun skin.

3. Clicking on the operator in the middle will allow you to change character skins.

4. The items to the right of that will allow you to change your secondary weapon and utility/grenades

5. Clicking the arrows will assign the specific items/skins to all of the operators in your squad

6. The 3 arrows pointing left under the selections will assign selected items/skins to all squads.

Loadouts will not save between matches. My personal favorite guns are the MP5-N, the CM901 and the SR-25


Range: Max distance a weapon can fire.

Damage: Amount of damage inflicted at point-blank range.

Accuracy: Base accuracy of the weapon

Stability: Maximum recoil of the weapon

Recovery: How fast the reticule recovers after shot.


Assault: Affects general accuracy with all weapons other than sniper rifles.

Demolitions: Affects how fast you can plant explosives.

Electronics: Affects how fast you can plant or disable electronics (ex. bomb defusal).

Sniper: Affects general accuracy with sniper rifles.

Self Control: Affects how willing AI controlled squad members are to shoot when there is a good chance at missing the target. (Higher the value, the longer they wait and the more accurate they become.)

Leadership: Affects the length of time between issuing orders and teammates responding

Observation: Affects how observant AI squad members are.


Assault: Specializes in all weapons other than snipers.

Recon: Specializes in stealthy movement and being undetected.

Sniper: Specializes in using sniper rifles.

Demolitions: Specializes in explosives.

Electronics: Specializes in placing and manipulating electronics/utility

One of the best parts of this game is the planning phase. Although skipped by some, when used correctly it becomes a very powerful tool. The planning phase will allow you not not only help you keep track of direction but allow you to program team AI to do exactly as you tell them to before the match starts.

1. To start placing waypoints, click on one of the red squares on the map. These are insertion zones. Green squares are extraction zones.



2. From there you can click around the map placing waypoints around the map. This is the direction squad leads will take their squad.



3. Controls for the planning table include:

WASD: to pan the map.

Q and E: Rotate map.

T and G: Angle the map to be 3D.

R and F: Zoom in and out.



4. The squad colored dots at the bottom left let you toggle between selecting each squad. The goggles will toggle between hiding/showing that squads waypoints.



5. Hitting the 3D button will show a gameview window at the selected waypoint.



5.1. Clicking and dragging on the window will give you a look around where the waypoint is placed.



6. The arrows will control what waypoint is being selected.



7. The middle panel will control the map such as changing floors.



8. If you need to delete waypoints, you can use these buttons to control what waypoints are being deleted.



9. You can change the Rule of Engagement between placed waypoints by right clicking the circle with the gun on it.

Assault will have your team fire at will at any terrorist in sight,

Infiltrate will force the squad to use silenced weapons and stay quiet.

Recon will make your team only use silenced weapons fire upon being fired upon.

Blitz, Normal and Cautious will dictate how fast your squad moves.



10. You can right click on a selected waypoint and tell the squad to throw a grenade. Your squad must have that grenade equipped in the loadout menu. Once you select the grenade, choose where the grenade is being thrown by clicking in a near area.

10.1 You can also throw a grenade through a door (ex. performing a flash and clear) by placing your squad close to a door and placing the grenade icon on the other side of the door.



11. Go codes are useful for syncing squad actions such as breaching a door. Using the "Breach" option near a door will spawn an icon on the door indicating that the squad will C4 to door.

Go codes A, B and C are activated with the J, K, and L keys

Giving a squad a go code will have the team wait to do an action until the player hits one of the go code keys before continuing with the waypoints. The example below has red squad breaching the door but waiting until green squad gets there. Once the "J" key is hit to activate go code "A", red squad will then blow up the door.



12. Go codes will also allow you to setup snipers. Setting a squad to snipe will make the squad lead prone and snipe until the go code is hit to continue with the waypoints.



13. When giving yourself waypoints, you will have blips floating to tell you where to go. This includes when you set yourself to snipe, breach, throw a grenade or wait for go codes.



14. After you set your plans up, You will see this menu where you can select which squad you want to play as. The bottom middle button will let you observe the AI complete the mission by themselves using your plan. Clicking the arrow on the bottom right will start the mission.



Note: Game can crash at anytime so make sure you save your plans!

Some important keybinds to remember.

Q and E will let you lean left and right

1-4 keys will let you change between weapon and utility/grenades

5 key will turn your night vision on like this:



6 key held down will pull up a weapon wheel like this:



7 key held down will show all active operators and squads like this:



8 key will call for a status report of all squads

F1 key held down will show all HUD

G key held down to display the map like this:



B key to change rate of fire

N key to skip waypoint blip

Space bar to interact



Scroll Wheel to open a door fluidly

Space Bar held down will open up team commands for AI squad members



Spacebar + Rightclick will queue an AI squad command, which can be activated by pressing the "," key.

X to crouch and prone

C to stand back up

Some extra tips and features offered by the game and mods.

1. To snake cam, crouch and look at the bottom of a door to enter the snake cam. Move away to get out.



2. Pressing ALT while ADS will cycle reticule for some optics.





2.1. Pressing ALT while not ADS will turn on the laser sight on some guns.



3. Opening the console using the "~" key and typing in modweapon 1 will give your gun a canted RMR backup sight.





3.1. Typing in modweapon 0 will give your gun canted ironsights.





Holding ALT will switch between the sights.

Canted sights can be glitchy so it is not recommended to switch between the two options in one session. you can quick load the command in the console by hitting the up arrow once it's been activated once.

4. You can change the leaning mechanic to be toggle instead of hold by opening up the user.ini file in the game directory. Rainbow Six 3 Gold / Save / Profiles / user.ini.



4.1. Find Aliases 6 and 7 (aka "PeakLeft" and "PeakRight"). Delete the word Button replace them with Toggle





Note: Toggle lean is a bit funky but exists for those who want it. Reverse these steps to switch it back.


For realism reasons you may want to add this console command that makes you put your weapon down when you run. This mod is disabled by default. Twi added this feature in his Supply Drops Mod

1. To use this command, press the "~" Key to open up the console in-game.

2. Type setdashspeed 350 to enable this feature. (You only need to do this once until you turn it off)

3. If you want this feature off, type setdashspeed 0




1. Equip smokes on all operators. Smokes are the most powerful grenades as they can almost always be accurately thrown and allows your teammates to see through them while the terrorists cannot.

2. Make sure to have the highest leadership stat operators (ex. Ding Chavez) as squad leads as they will be able to issue commands much faster.

3. Use one of the squads as a sniper team to provide over-watch from a distance.

4. Use go-codes frequently when forming a push.

5. Prioritize stealth.


If squad AI ever climb a ladder and stop moving, you can use this work-around.

1. Place a milestone under the ladder in the planning phase so you know when ai are using the ladder

2. Wait around 5-10 seconds depending on how many squad members there are so they can all get up or down the ladder first.

3. Press the "H" Key twice to have teams first hold and then continue moving.

This should unlock their movement to continue with the mission.

I have hand picked maps from around the internet in which i consider to be the best custom maps for Rainbow Six 3. The criteria for these selections are: Working planning phase, Visual quality, Doesn't crash and Map flow/routes. This map pack contains 18 New Custom Maps from the Ravenshield community over the years. It is recommended to play campaign before downloading this map pack.

The install is straight forward.

1. Open the .rar file and open the folder inside. Drag all file contents inside to the Rainbow Six 3 main folder and replace whatever files it asks you to.

2. If you are using Dxwnd, Add your path to ravenshield.exe and add -norunaway to the launch bar. This will prevent any crashing.

If you are not using Dxwnd just do the same thing but in the steam launch options.




Download Link:
Rvs Custom Map Pack[drive.google.com]


Ancient temple
Small map taking place in an old temple.



El Diablo's
Large map in a Bar/Club and restaurant with an outdoor patio.



London Wharf
Large map at a cargo dock with some office spaces.



Alley Strike
Large map taking place in hotel rooms with large underground tunnels.



The Mall
Large map in a mall with lots of backrooms and some open stores.



Compound
Large map at a hidden terrorist compound with multiple buildings.



Disgruntled Customers
Large map at a TV station with detailed office spaces.



Metropolitan Library
Medium sized map at a library.



Operation Black Star
Medium sized map of a compound in the jungle. This classic map was originally in R6: Crirical Hour.



Residential Trauma
Small map taking place at a suburban home with big underground tunnels and sewers.



Egyptian Art Museum
Medium sized map in an art museum. This classic map was originally in R6: Rouge Spear.
(Practice mission to play HR)



Oil Tanker
Medium sized map taking place at an oil tanker in the middle of the ocean. This classic map was originally in R6: Rouge Spear. (Practice mission to play HR)



Weapons Cache
Large map raid on a weapons cache compound.



Alley Cat
Large map down a street with many open buildings. This map includes many routes and sewers with a big hotel in the middle.



H2 Oppression (Day/Night)
Large detailed map placed at a water treatment facility. Includes both a day and night variant.



Store
Small sized map taking place in a grocery store. Map originally from Rouge Spear.



Bowling Alley
Small map placed in a vibrant bowling alley and arcade.



White Oak
Medium sized map taking place in a mansion.



Last Updated 12/28/24
-fixed COstore bug

Custom Map Resources:

Modb

https://rvs.go2.rip/maps/l

Tactical Ape[tacticalape.ninjasfate.com]

Woody2000[www.woody2000.com]

This guide has provided everything you need to know about Rainbow Six 3 in 2025. Resources included. If you want to contribute mods or ask questions you can find me in the discords provided below.

If you would like to play this game in multiplayer or join a community who loves this game, join the Tactical Gaming Network Discord[discord.gg]

If you want to play a new game inspired by Rainbow Six 3, check out Operation Athena or join their Discord[discord.gg]
https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/app/2659690/Operation_Athena/

Thanks to Twi, juguLator01, Legacy Tactical, apkin, and all of the community members and modders preserving this game and making it an en enjoyable experience for so long.

Mod rights are reserved to their creators.