Rainbow Six Siege May Go Free-to-Play Soon

Rainbow Six Siege is one of the biggest games in the world, and it could be the next big multiplayer game to go free-to-play. According to Ubisoft, the development team has been thinking about making the PS4, Xbox One, and PC tactical shooter free-to-play for awhile, but it still has some hurdles to get over. One of these hurdles is curtailing smurfing, which like other multiplayer games, such as Rocket League, has become a big problem for the shooter.

According to game director Leroy Athanassoff, he and his team want to make the game free-to-play, but also noted that business decisions don't come down to the development team. Ubisoft is calling those shots. However, while Athanassoff wants to make the game more accessible to more players, he's also aware that this will bring a slew of new challenges. In other words, you can't simply change the price, and you can't open the game up to more players when you're having trouble policing the current base.

"You need certain features ready to be a good and successful free-to-play game," said the game director, before talking continuing about smurfing.

Right now, smurfing is a pretty big problem in the game. For those that don't know, this is when a high-skill player creates a new account to play at a lower level. It's common in multiplayer games with skill-based matchmaking.

"What's important for us is that we find out as soon as possible that a player is highly skilled in the things that matter," said Athanassoff. "The problem right now is that you can play a certain amount of matches with Copper players while you're a Diamond."

As you can see, there's a good chance that the game will eventually go free-to-play, which explains why Ubisoft has been selling the title at dirt cheap rates. However, before that can happen, there's plenty of improvements that need to be rolled out to ensure the experience isn't lessened by taking upon a payment model.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege is available for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Ubisoft recently confirmed the game will be coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X later this year. Perhaps this is when the game will go free-to-play.

H/T, PC Gamer.