10 Reasons to Buy Rainbow Six Siege

If you’re an active member of the gaming community, it’s likely that you’ve heard of Rainbow Six Siege.

For those who haven’t heard of it, it’s a team-based multiplayer shooter that revolves more around strategic positioning and improvisational team-tactics than it does an itchy trigger finger. With an active community and a growing roster of operators (playable characters with different abilities and loadouts; think mini-MOBA), it’s easy to see why the Siege virus is spreading as fast as it is. However, due to the niche nature of it, it’s unlikely that it will change the course of the industry. So, it’s best to buy it soon, long before the player-base inevitably dies down, because you’re unlikely to ever find anything like it.

Here’s ten reasons to buy Rainbow Six Siege today.

 

1. Rising tension

Every match of Rainbow Six Siege starts out as tense as the midpoint of your typical Call of Duty match. The game starts out with a short preparation phase. As an attacker, you have to use your drones (little RC pods with cameras) to find the objective and figure out who the defenders are playing as. Given how short the preparation phase is, no matter how good your map knowledge is, if you’re not coordinating with your team, it’s very possible you won’t find the objective room. On top of this, the defenders can destroy your drones, severely limiting the amount of intel your team can gather. As a defender, you have to rush to set up barricades all across the objective room (sometimes even above the room), set up your traps/equipment, run to a starting position if you’re roaming, all while trying to hunt down attacker drones (extra emphasis on Twitch drones, which can damage you and destroy your equipment). Even before that, you’ll often find yourself in a rush to coordinate with your team to figure out who’ll play who for the best chance of success.

Once the preparation phase ends, that’s when the real fun begins. Firefights are short and death comes quick. You can’t rush your way through a round if you want to succeed. Due to the game’s slow and methodical approach, rounds will often reach their conclusion just before the round timer ends. And when you see those final seconds ticking down, that’s when the adrenaline kicks in. You have the choice to rush forward, putting yourself at a defensive disadvantage for a chance to win, or wait it out, hoping your opponent will make the first move and rush into your crosshair. Every second that counts down means another opportunity for success is lost, however time must be sacrificed in order to succeed, making every second more tense than the last.

 

2. Death is permanent(ish)

If you die at the beginning of the round, you don’t respawn. That’s it. You’re down for the count and you simply have to wait until the next round to try and make a comeback. This makes you act very methodically because you can’t afford to mess up. This might sound like a bummer (and when you first start playing, it is), but it ensures that every moment is exhilarating and impactful. Simply getting lucky (or unlucky) and killing an important enemy operator at the beginning can mean the difference between success and failure.

 

3. Every choice matters

This game operates on a risk/reward system of choices. Every action taken is another opportunity lost. With fifty different ways to tackle every encounter, you can’t guarantee you’ll make the right decision. Should you play it safe or should you take a risk? Should you all go in at once to try and overwhelm the defenders, or should you all go in separately to catch them off guard? Should you play as Twitch to turn Mira’s Black Mirror into a strategic disadvantage, or should you counter with Hibana to blow a hole where the mirror used to be? Every choice is your own, and every choice has its own pros and cons. But when your choices pay off, damn does it feel good.

 

4. Destruction tech

Rainbow Six disregards the industry’s standard formula for destruction. Instead of opting for bombast, it goes for dynamicity. Instead of bringing down skyscrapers, it’s a small hole that opens up a new choke point. Almost everything in Siege is destructible to some degree. Cover is not permanent, and neither is any wall. Shooting a wall with a shotgun is a legitimate strategy in Siege. Want the upper hand? Use a breaching charge on the floor and shoot the defenders in-between the metal bars. Need a quick escape from pursuing attackers? Use an impact grenade and turn that wall into a doorway. Tried shooting an enemy through the wall but missed? Don’t worry. You didn’t waste your ammo, you opened up a new line of sight for round two.

 

5. Youtube and Twitch content

Rainbow Six Siege already has an expansive and ever growing community of Youtubers and Twitch streamers. While the game is plenty fun to watch even if you’ve never played (I have that as a personal testimony from a friend who doesn’t even play games), it is very complex and has an incredibly high skill ceiling. If you don’t have at least a basic understanding of the game through experience, you’re (at the very least) not going to be able to appreciate the high level strategies and improvisational tactics employed in a lot of videos and streams, let alone understand everything that’s going on without doing lots of research. Once you’re in, you’ll be watching a lot of Siege videos, not only to live vicariously through the (impossibly) highly skilled players you’re watching, but also to passively learn new strategies and tactics.

 

6. Hard but rewarding

It’s no secret that Siege has a steep difficulty curve and a high skill ceiling. Almost any article or video going into even a shallow depth of detail about the game never fails to mention it. So, I’m going to be honest here: if you have trouble sticking with games that don’t let you ease your way in, this game isn’t for you. While there is a tutorial of sorts by way of the Situations game mode, it’s no replacement for the real thing. It’s the game equivalent of a show that only really gets good in it’s second season. But, and this is important, while the beginning hours may be hard to get through (if not absolutely grueling, but that’s easily a worst case scenario), once you earn the skill to succeed, it’ll quickly become one of the most rewarding multiplayer experiences you can have. My tip: try to notice every moment of success and genuine fun you have while you’re still learning. It’ll give you the motivation to push through to the real fun.

 

7. Single player content

While the single player content is only about 2% of why anyone buys Siege, it’s still a damned good bit of content for what it is. Situations is essentially an expansive tutorial mode, covering all the basics – some of the moderate level information you need to know to succeed, while also a fairly decent challenge mode. You’ll find yourself going back to it every now and then even after you’re well into your multiplayer win-streak on higher difficulties just to test how much you’ve improved (it’s also a great way to earn in-game currency). Terrorist Hunt also has a lone wolf mode, allowing you to infiltrate a terrorist controlled compound to try and complete one of the few types of objectives that are seen in multiplayer. With an uphill battle of numbers, and the special units of bombers (and enemy that will run at you, blow themselves up, and kill you in one hit if you don’t pay attention) it holds plenty of fun for anyone looking for a break from the tension of multiplayer, without giving up any of the strategy.

 

8. Realism without simulating

Tom Clancy games used to strive for military realism without making it feel like a military simulation. What this meant was that the stakes were high, death was quick, and you had to play smart. This was especially true in earlier Rainbow Six games. But, alas, the Tom Clancy franchise broke from its path. Even Rainbow Six games became standard military high-fantasy. But Siege is a return to form. Siege is a thinking man’s shooter. You’re best weapon isn’t a high-caliber rifle, it isn’t your mad 360 no-scopes, it isn’t even your reflex time. It’s your brain. It’s your ability to effectively communicate and plan with your team, your knowledge of the strategic opportunities you can employ, and your ability to outsmart the enemy. It’s not a sensory power-trip, it’s a strategic one.

 

9. The content keeps coming

The Rainbow Six team has already said they plan to continue supporting Siege for quite some time. With 20 operators on release, 10 new operators already released, and a stated plan of having 50 total operators by the time they stop producing content, it’s clear to see that we haven’t seen all that Siege has to offer. Year 1 released 8 new operators, so assuming they continue that trend, we should be seeing new content being released even four years after the original début of Rainbow Six Siege. With Year 2 having just started, why not pick up the Gold Edition of Siege? Whether you’re a gaming veteran or a filthy casual looking to wash up, if you liked what you’ve heard so far, I guarantee you won’t regret picking up a copy of Rainbow Six Siege today.

 

10. Lord Tachanka

One word: memes.