About

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege, also known as simply Rainbow Six Siege and commonly abbreviated to R6S, is a first person shooter video game and the latest entry in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six series developed and published by Ubisoft. Released on December 1st, 2015, the game garnered notoriety for its fast action multiplayer, similar to Valve's Counter Strike: Global Offensive, and has garnered a niche fandom as well.

Premise

Years after the deactivation of Team Rainbow, various terrorist organizations have emerged. The White Masks are the most prominent organization, spreading chaos around the world and targeting anyone without discrimination. Under the leadership of Six, Team Rainbow is once again reactivated, recruiting members all over the world to combat this terrorist organization.^[11]

Gameplay

Siege is a primarily multiplayer tactical first person shooter game where players control an operator from the available roster. These operators are part of a nation's military or police force, such as the US FBI SWAT force, the Russian Spetsnaz, and the British SAS. Each operator has an assortment of weapons and unique gadgets to use in-game, with customizable weapons and weapon loadouts. As of October 4th, 2017, there are 36 operators, 18 for attackers and 18 for defenders, along with a default generic "recruit" operator. An assortment of game modes and maps are available to choose from and play in. The game modes are:

• Hostage, a competitive multiplayer mode where attackers must breach and rescue a hostage from the defenders, who must protect the hostage from being rescued by the attackers. The game ends when all players on a team are killed, the hostage is rescued, or when the hostage is downed (shown below).

• Bomb, another competitive multiplayer mode where attackers must attempt to defuse one of two bombs where the defenders prevent the bomb defusal from occurring by destroying the bomb defuser or killing the entire opposing team.

• Secure Area, a third competitive multiplayer mode where defenders must protect biohazard containers from the attackers. The game ends when all players on a team are killed or if the attackers seize the containers successfully.

• Terrorist Hunt, a cooperative multiplayer or solo game mode where attackers or defenders fend off against increasing waves of AI enemies.

• Situations, which are singleplayer scenarios mainly used as tutorials and introductions for the game's mechanics.

History

Rainbow Six Siege was developed as the next entry of the Rainbow Six franchise by Ubisoft. Originally, the next entry in the series was supposed to be Rainbow 6: Patriots, announced in 2011 (trailer shown below).^[1] Patriots was supposed to have more of an emphasis on narrative rather than gameplay, and would feature a large amount of cutscenes and scripted events. The game would go into development hell and later be cancelled in 2014 for a number of reasons, ranging the general quality of the game not being up to par to the need to make a game that could take advantage of the eighth console generation's hardware.^[2][4]

After the cancellation of Patriots, Ubisoft assembled a new team to come up with ideas to reboot the series.^[3] The team was comprised of longtime players of the Rainbow Six series and first person shooter veterans. Though they knew how games like this played and worked, they also took inspiration from various counter terrorist operations in the past such as the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege, the 1997 Lufthansa Flight 181 hijacking, and the 2002 Moscow Nord-Ost siege in order to assure accuracy in procedures. The team also consulted various counter terrorist units such as the French GIGN unit for how they would react in a hostage rescue situation.^[5]

Development began in 2013 with Ubisoft Montreal developing it along with assistance from Ubisoft Barcelona, Ubisoft Toronto, Ubiosft Kiev, Ubisoft Shanghai, and Ubisoft Chengdu. The game was announced by Ubisoft during their E3 2014 press conference (trailer shown below) and was set for release in October 2015, though it would be later pushed to December of 2015. (trailer shown below) A closed alpha period would last from April 7–13, 2015,^[6] followed by a closed beta period starting from September 24th, which would change to an open beta on November 26th.^[7]

On December 1st, the game was officially released for Xbox One, PS4, and PC, featuring 20 operators and 11 maps to choose from. Shortly following its release, the game would receive a number of bug-fixes and tweaks on matchmaking and game mechanics.^[8][9] For Siege, Ubisoft adopted a "game as a service" approach, where they would provide long-term support for the game and offer post-release content to keep players engaged. This was originally doubted by management, though they would later agree with the approach.^[3] eSports organization ESL and Ubisoft would also announce Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Pro League, a new global tournament for pro Siege players. The first tournament was held on March 4th, 2016.

Expansions and DLC

In 2016, 4 expansions packs and downloadable content were made available, one for each season, as part of the long term support. The first, "Operation Black Ice" was released on February 2nd, and featured a new map set on a frozen yacht in the Canadian Arctic and two new operators to play as from Canada, Frost and Buck. This was followed up by "Operation Dust Line" on May 10th, which also introduced a new map, set in the Middle East this time, and two more operators from the US Navy SEALs, Valkyrie and Blackbeard. On August 2nd, "Operation Skull Rain" was released, featuring a map set in Brazil and two new operators from the Brazilian BOPE unit, Caveira and Capitão, along with a new game mode called "Tactical Realism," where more realistic elements were emphasized. On November 17th, the final content pack of the year, "Operation Red Crow", was released, featuring a map set in a Japanese skyscraper and two accompanying Japanese operators, Hibana and Echo (trailers shown below).

In 2017, 4 more expansion packs were released, one for each season like the previous year. The first one, "Operation Velvet Shell" was released on February 8th and featured a map set in Spain and two accompanying operators, Mira and Jackal. On June 6th, "Operation Health" was released as an update for the game that fixed various issues with the game,^[10] but would delay new upcoming content as a result. On September 5th, "Operation Blood Orchid" was released, featuring a map set in an abandoned Hong Kong theme park, and this time 3 new operators, Ying and Lesion of the Hong Kong SDU, and the Polish defender Ela (trailers shown below). On December 5th, the final expansion pack, "Operation White Noise" was released, featuring a map set in the fictional Korean Mok Myeok Tower, and 3 new operators: the South Korean Vigil and Dokkaebi and the Polish attacker Zofia.

Upcoming content includes new operators from France, Russia, Italy, the UK, the US, and Morocco, along with a new game mode called Outbreak, and two new maps. The first expansion, "Operation Chimera" is expected to be released in early 2018.^[23]

Reception

Critical reception to the game has been generally positive. The PC version of the game has a Metacritic score of 79,^[12] while its PS4 and Xbox One counterparts scored less, with a 73^[13] and 74^[14] respectively. The game's Steam page has received an 87% positive user rating from over 68,000 users.^[15]. Critics praised the tense action and destructable environments in the game, but criticized the initial lack of content and microtransactions.

In terms of game critics, Chris Carter, writing for Destructoid, gave the game an 8/10, stating "While three modes doesn't sound like a lot, the sheer volume of variables involved will result in an experience that constantly stays fresh, even with the current pool of 11 maps. While a few other major shooters have let me down this year, I think Siege is one of the games I'll be playing the most going forward."^[16] James Davenport of PCGamer rated the game 90/100 stating that "[It] is an accessible and deeply satisfying shooter that rewards planning and teamwork over a quick trigger finger."^[17] Polygon's Arthur Gies' opinion was more mixed, giving the game a 6/10 and concluding that "Siege hides its best parts behind a lot of frustration."^[18] A noteworthy positive review came from YouTuber Super Bunnyhop, praising the game and calling it "underrated." (shown below)

In terms of sales, the game sold 76,000 copies at launch across all three platforms and debuted at number 6 on the UK Software Charts,^[19] which many critics noted as being very underwhelming for launch sales.^[20] However, with the release of expansion packs and DLC, the player base doubled in size.^[21] By the release of "Operation Skull Rain", the player base saw a 40% increase and reached over 10 million registered players.^[22]

Online Relevance

The game's official Facebook has garnered over 830,000 likes^[24] and the game's Twitter account has garnered over 644,000 followers as of July 2017.^[25] A subreddit for the Rainbow Six series was established in 2011 by redditor soullimbo has since garnered over 169,000 subscribers as of writing, with official Ubisoft employees that browse the subreddit.^[26] Another subreddit exists for mainly Rainbow Six memes which was established in 2016 by redditor DM2602 has garnered almost 19,000 subscribers.^[27] A wiki exists for the game that has almost 700 pages as of writing. The game has also become a popular game to play by lets-players. (examples shown below)

The game has also garnered a small fandom, with fan-art from artists on Tumblr^{[28][29][31][32]} and over 1,100 results on DeviantArt.^[30] The game has also spawned cosplay made by fans of the game. (fan-art and examples shown below)

Related Memes

Lord Tachanka

Lord Tachanka is an ironic nickname given to the Russian operator Tachanka, who many fans considered to be poorly designed and under-powered upon release due to his main gadget, a deployable mounted RP-46 Degtyaryov machine gun, dealing very little damage and how he doesn't get any buffs compared to other operators.

Fooking Laser Sights

Fooking Laser Sights is a quote spoken by the British operator Thatcher in Rainbow Six Siege. The quote and its accompanying scene has since become the subject of remixes since the release of the game.

Fuzing The Hostagae

Fuzing The Hostage refers to a running joke practice in the Siege community regarding how often the Russian operator Fuze usually kills the hostage in the Hostage game mode. This is mostly due to his unique gadget of Matryoshka cluster charges, which are useful for clearing rooms and mostly killing whoever is inside the room when deployed, usually including the hostage and leading to jokes about a "six body kill count", referring to the five defending members and the hostage.

Bandit's Drugs

Bandit's Drugs refers to a quote spoken by the German operator Bandit in his unlock cinematic, where he speaks about the nefarious things he did to get to the top, including selling drugs. The quote has since become the subject of remixes similar to "Fooking Laser Sights," and as a running joke where Bandit is usually fixated on various drugs.

Search Interest

External References