Rainbow Six Siege, I Was So Wrong About You

I think I have a problem. The only reason I am able to write this right now is because I have given my sister my copy of Rainbow Six Siege and forbidden her from giving it back to me until at least 5pm. Siege has a hold on me unlike any game I’ve ever played, capable of turning my lunch breaks into day breaks as I struggle to do any work, instead intent on setting one more trap and breaching one more window.

I wasn’t always so hot on Siege, however. Back in November, I penned a pretty scathing first impressions article of the game based on its beta. They say you should never judge a book by its cover. Well, maybe you should never judge a game by its beta.

There just isn’t a great deal of variety; a blow for a game that doesn’t come with any kind of single player experience that’s worth getting excited about.

This criticism isn’t actually fully fair. There’s tons of variety that isn’t immediately obvious; it all depends on how you play. Do you camp near the objective and patiently wait for an attacker to appear in your crosshairs? Or do you go searching for them within the building to strike before they do? As for single-player, that sentiment does unfortunately still have to stand. The ‘Situations’ mode starts off interestingly enough, but quickly becomes less alluring than the intensity of multiplayer – I have only completed about half of them and, Platinum trophy hunt or not, have little to no interest in ever returning to the mode.

A lot of extra content seems to be gated off, making me worried that Ubisoft have followed 2K’s lead again by focusing heavily on DLC.

Not quite true. Ubisoft released the Black Ice DLC for free recently, which gave players new map to shoot up and two new operators to play with. You can either grind for dozens of hours to unlock the operators or pay a standard fee to unlock them instantly. I wish you didn’t have to pay extra money for content that should arguably already be in the game, but with the game industry as it is in terms of DLC, it’s a decent choice by Ubisoft to allow you to unlock them the old fashioned way. They also have plans to release more free content in the future, though not much has been heard on that front lately.

“It’s just a shame that truly competitive matches are few and far between”

Actually, Past Jimmy, you’re wrong again. All ranked matches are deeply competitive with every death and kill carrying a lot of weight to your reputation and team. Die too often and your stats will fail to flatter, leading to some inconsistent match-ups. When you “git gud”, each match feels like a cup final as it’s always dogged and enthralling interior warfare; I have yet to come across any teammates in ranked play that purposely jeopardise the team.

Saying that, though, casual play is about as competitive as a wrestling tournament at a kindergarten. Check out the capture below to see what I mean.

The less I mention the way you seem to run as if you’re wading through the bins of a Wetherspoon’s after a Friday night

Having played only as the brutish, burly types during the beta, I was a bit quick to judge. Ash has become my favourite attacker as she zips about the map with ease and other operators like IQ and Sledge aren’t slouches either.

The core mechanics in Siege are decent, but nothing spectacular.

Probably the least fair thing I said in my preview. We’re all crying out for something different with our FPS games and no, that doesn’t mean jumping around in the air and being all futuristic, Call of Duty. Siege takes a basic formula and adds a lot of depth, which only becomes greater once you unlock all the operators and understand their skills and nuances. For instance, Kapkan can set traps to kill attackers coming through doors with Thatcher acting as his Moriarty thanks to his EMP grenades. All of the operators compliment and negate each other in really interesting ways.

Comparisons to Counter-Strike, which also act as something of a criticism of the game, aren’t a hundred miles off. However, it’s like comparing Battlefield and Call of Duty – they are similar at their cores, but drastically different everywhere else. Siege is able to stand on its own, probably even to hardcore CS fans, thanks to its intensity and team-based mechanics. Anyone who decries it as nothing more than a CS clone are seriously missing out.

…the servers were about as efficient as a goldfish copywriter

Sadly, this is one of the only criticisms in my preview that I can stand by. It’s not unfortunate because I want to be proved right, it’s because months down the line of a AAA game, you’d expect servers to be fairly robust. That just isn’t the case.

Far, far too often am I embroiled in a ferociously close ranked match before I am kicked because of a loss in connection, which becomes even more annoying when you’re barred from playing further as the game thinks you’ve quit. I dread loading times that go on for slightly too long, fully expecting to be booted from the match and to let my team down in the process.

If you’re undecided about Rainbow Six Siege, I would highly recommend you pick it up, especially at a reduced price. It might not be perfect, no game is, but once it has its hooks in you, you may struggle to break free. If you’re already a fan, feel free to add my PSN (LoopyFiasco) and I’ll be happy to play with you. I’m holding you accountable when Cultured Vultures shuts down through negligence though, okay?