Rainbow Six Siege X Preview: A New Era

Rainbow Six Siege is turning 10 this year, and Ubisoft is celebrating this big milestone with a major evolution of the tactical shooter. This evolution takes its form in a game called Rainbow Six Siege X, the foundation for the next 10 years of Siege. Everything you know and love about Siege is still here along with a variety of improvements, new features and content, and even new ways to access the game. Existing players will carry everything they own over to Siege X while new players can get in on the action for free. To be clear, this is not a sequel to Rainbow Six Siege; it’s more of a revision of the game you’ve been playing for years.

It’s a new era for Rainbow Six Siege, and I had the pleasure of going hands-on with the game in Atlanta prior to its official unveiling. I got to play hours of the game, interview the developers, and understand why Ubisoft is investing so much into this new version of Siege. Admittedly, Siege X is still very much the same game as before. The core objectives remain the same, the all-out tactical destruction is in play, and every single operator is here. You can boot up Siege X as a regular Siege player and feel right at home, there’s not any sort of learning curve whatsoever for returning players. That may feel a bit disappointing to some who want something bigger and different from the game they have been playing for the last decade, but it seems like this is more of a starting point for something more fresh.

Why Is Rainbow Six Siege X Not a Sequel?

So, why didn’t Ubisoft make a sequel to Siege? Game director Josh Mills joined the Siege team three years ago when Ubisoft began kicking around the idea of pushing the game forward. While a sequel was considered, he thinks it would be hard to capture lightning in a bottle twice and a sequel risks destroying the things people love about the game.

”[A sequel] was talked about, but the reality is when we look at it and dive into it, with the creation of Siege originally, you captured lightning in a bottle,” he said. “Trying to redo that on totally different tech and totally different experiences, because there are different people back then who built that and made certain decisions all through the generational team of Siege.”

To recreate that all from scratch, it just doesn’t happen. The honest reality of it was because we have control over all of our tech, we can take chunks of it out, rebuild it, and then check ahead for where we want to be in the next five years, ten years, and start future-proofing ourselves on different products. So being able to do that, it has served us very well, there’s a bunch of stuff in the back end that’s not player-facing, but that process has been great and proved we can continue to move forward.”

That’s not to say there aren’t legitimate gameplay changes in Siege X, though. The biggest thing is the “destructible ingredients”, which are dynamic objects in the environment that can change the playing field. Fire extinguishers can be shot to create a huge smoke screen, allowing you a chance to escape or confuse your enemy. Gas pipes can be hit, prompting a steady stream of fire to blow out which can cut off flanking points or pursuers before it eventually explodes and creates a giant pool of fire on the floor. These kinds of things add yet another layer of strategy to the game and can quickly, but also fairly change the tides of war on a dime.

During a tense match, I was defending an objective and the enemy team was about to start pouring in through a door. I shot one of the gas pipes, immediately damaging one of my foes, causing them to retreat. Unfortunately, they weren’t aware it eventually explodes so a first degree burn turned into a fatal gas explosion. While there are only a few of these kinds of dynamic items on the maps, Mills told me it’s really only the beginning for this system so long as players respond well to it.

”It’s definitely a start for us to be able to introduce these ingredients,” said Mills. “Being able to expand across that will be determined by how our community reacts to it, how its being utilized, learnings that come from that, and the one thing we’ve talked about a lot when we’re working on new things for the game is we don’t want to do anything as a gimmick. It’s gotta have some sort of serious root into how it can affect the moment-to-moment gameplay. […] There will definitely be more things over time, we’re not closing the book on that. [We want to] get it out there, get data coming in, and continue to push beyond that. We have ideas of where we’d like to go, but we’re not gonna put all the cards on the table yet.”

Could Terrorist Hunt Return in Rainbow Six Siege X?

Ubisoft has gone to great lengths to retool Siege with graphical overhauls, audio reworks, and more quality of life changes like improved UI, sprinting while rappelling, and weapon inspects. Additionally, Ubisoft has created new and improved AI for training modes which allow the enemy AI to do all of the things you would expect from a real player. They can use gadgets, bust through walls, and play the game efficiently, so you can be properly trained for real matches.

Although this is really only going to be utilized by new players, it begs the question: Will Ubisoft ever have more cooperative content in this ten year vision for Siege X? I asked Mills about a potential return to something like Terrorist Hunt in Siege X and it sounds like Ubisoft isn’t ruling anything out.

”I think the reality is, when we talk about Terrorist Hunt, I am super excited about the AI innovations that we’re doing,” said Mills. “They kick so much ass, the fact that our AI can play like our players and do gadgets, proper flanking, and team up with each other, and drone now, it’s nuts what they can do. To continue to build that up and enhance that over time makes a truer experience as to what you can go up against in a match of Siege. Just being able to run through the map and knock down targets, there’s something about that and there’s value to it. By overhauling our entire AI system, we future-proof ourselves to build the next iteration of different things.”

I wouldn’t say we’re ruling it out, we know there’s an ask from the community and we want to listen to our community. There’s definitely steps we have to take to build toward something like that.”

However, fans shouldn’t expect another single player campaign or anything of that nature in Siege X’s future.

“Siege will always be PvP, that’s kind of in the nature of the game,” said Mills.

Rainbow Six Siege X‘s Big New Mode

With Rainbow Six Siege X deepening the game in all these ways, I brought up the initial E3 2014 gameplay reveal for Siege to Mills. I specifically pointed out how there was one feature that never made it into the final game, which was a helicopter drop that allowed attackers to rappel from a helicopter onto the roof as their starting point. It felt immersive, exciting, and very tactical, but for whatever reason, it wasn’t included. Mills noted to me that was a very important moment for him as a fan before he even worked on Siege and is a driving force for shaping the experience of Siege X.

”That moment struck me as a player ages ago,” said Mills. “It comes down to the fact that it fed so well for the fantasy of what you would expect. This is one of the things we drive a lot these days, the player fantasy, you are these elite operators doing incredible things that no one else does, so we need to embrace it more. This is why I am excited about Dual Front and assignments because we get to explore more of this stuff and do stuff that fits this operator fantasy.”

The Dual Front mode that Mills mentioned is one of the bigger selling points of Siege X. This new mode dramatically changes the gameplay of Siege by being a 6v6 mode with respawns. Players are simultaneously attacking and defending, which means they get to choose operators from both operator pools. Both teams have an active point on the map at the same time, which means they have to determine who stays back to defend the objective and who goes out to attack the enemy’s base. I quickly realized that although Doc is a defender, it makes more sense for him to go with the attackers in Dual Front so he can keep them healed and revive them as they breach into the opponent’s building.

The first team to capture three points wins, but there’s a catch. At some point during the match, both teams have the opportunity to complete an option assignment that progresses their time on the enemy’s point to make it easier to capture. In the build we played, this came in the form of a hostage that needed to be rescued and extracted via a helicopter. It’s a fun way of shaking things up and another way to keep things competitive.

All around, it’s a fun mode and one that Ubisoft plans to keep fresh. Every month, it will jumble up the pool of available operators in Dual Front and the map itself will also evolve regularly to keep players on their toes. These constant updates and changes aren’t exclusive to Dual Front, though. Siege X as a whole aims to have more content at a faster pace going forward with a new operator or operator remaster, three remastered maps from the original game, and two major events every single season. Year 11 will also bring a brand new map to the game as well, so Ubisoft is already hard at work ensuring there’s a steady stream of content for the future.

Rainbow Six Siege X Goes Free to Play

All of this will arrive when Rainbow Six Siege X launches in year 10, season 2, which is likely sometime this summer. The game will still have a paid option which includes all of the content you’d normally get with Siege, but there will also be a free version as well. The free version will allow players to earn up to 26 operators and play Dual Front, Quick Play, and all the unranked content. However, if you want every operator and access to the game’s competitive modes, you’ll have to buy the premium version. Everyone who owns Siege is automatically given this version, so don’t worry about spending more money.

As for why Ubisoft opted to structure its free version this way, it’s actually pretty simple. Partially, the free access allows players to comfortably understand Siege and learn the ropes without throwing down a large sum of cash. Ubisoft also wants to maintain the integrity of Rainbow Six Siege X’s competitive scene as much as possible and only allow players who are serious about investing into the game to partake in ranked matches while also keeping cheaters out.

”We want to protect our competitive [players], it’s something we take very seriously,” said Mills. “It’s one of the things that drives the direction we go with, we want to ensure it’s the true North Star of Siege is that level of play. By protecting it through the paywall, we don’t have to worry about a flood of stuff. I think our anti-cheat and all the work we’ve done is phenomenal and had a huge impact on the game. We’re just making smart choices to make sure we continue to protect the game.”

Ultimately, Rainbow Siege X sounds like a compelling starting point for the future of the game. I really do hope that Ubisoft continues to innovate with bigger ideas beyond operators such as integrating more of these destructible ingredients, more dynamic elements, and hopefully, something like Terrorist Hunt. It sounds like they’ve created a foundation that could allow for stuff like that down the line, but either way, Siege X is only improving the game. It’s not a case of Warzone 2 or Overwatch 2 where the game goes too far in the other direction and totally regresses the experience, prompting the developer to spend years undoing its mistakes. 

Siege X is somewhat of a safe game, but after players spent ten years falling in love with a game that only has a handful of modes, that may be the best direction. There’s no need to rock the boat when the game is already so good and hopefully, that boat can continue to safely sail for the next decade. 

Disclaimer: Ubisoft provided travel and lodging for the purposes of this preview event.