Self-incriminating release notes

We could let Siege damn itself, in fact, by noting some of the things that have been fixed. Patch 1.1 changed the nearly-unforgivable launch netcode that meant you were regularly killed by people that hadn't yet appeared on-screen, as well as the charmless issue of random players' microphones permanently transmitting during matches. Patch 1.2 introduced the ability to let you manually change the data centre you're connecting to by editing the gamesettings.ini file (very PC gamer). The developers justified this as the quickest way to get a fix out there for a common problem before adding it in-game. That's fine, but it does bring to mind a mechanic hanging off the front of an F1 car.

Finally Patch 1.3, released January 14, claimed to introduce more anti-cheating protections, but this was (understandably) light on details. As Ars readers know, there's nothing better than spotting a cheater, but I'm also cautious of being too hasty, because people online shout "cheat" all the time. It's not endemic but there are definite cheaters in Siege, and a wall hacker is an enormous problem in a game where you can be shot through most walls. Don't get me started on the lack of a structure to deal with griefers and teamkillers, because we could go on like this forever.

I adore Siege but this stuff drives me nuts, so for those on the fence I can only imagine what it looks like. Stockholm syndrome? I just had a game playing as the Fuze class where—after placing a cluster charge on the outside of a boarded window—a clever defender blew out the window from inside using a nitro charge. My cluster charge, however, remained in position, suspended in space, and I triggered it to send in three grenades for an undeserved but delicious kill.

Glitches like this can be fixed easily enough, one would hope, but body parts clipping through walls is a more intractable problem. On the defending side Siege is very much about camping, but if you're next to certain walls bits of your anatomy or gun can clip through them. This happens especially when prone, because the player's perspective is disconnected from the character model in the sense the latter can occupy impossible positions so the former can take realistic sightlines. This is not an easily solvable problem because, basically, it's a trade-off the developers have made. But one has to question the wisdom of that deal in a game where positioning is king.

If I ever meet Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, the first thing I will say is "give up on uPlay." One has to respect that any publisher Ubisoft's size wants to have its own distribution platform and "social network," but not at the point where it is actively making that same company's games worse for the player. Siege uses uPlay to handle team invites, and it only just manages. Sometimes the invites don't go through, or it drops players between screens. This is a pain when you just want efficiency.

More than anyone else, I feel sorry for the developers of Siege, who have made the game of their careers. It is an absolute peach, but while they're firefighting so many issues there's no time to look at long-term refinements for balance and maps. It's like Ubisoft's management doesn't comprehend just how good Siege is or how much its potential is harmed by Ubisoft's servers and uPlay.

Perhaps Siege is seen internally as potential sequel material, Ubisoft's own Call of Duty cookie-cutter, rather than a platform to be grown over time. That would be so short-sighted—and such a waste of potential—that it has to be called mismanagement. Siege's quality is so high in parts that the game could become a serious e-sports platform and, given time, might even surpass the mighty Counter-Strike.

As things stand, Siege is a potentially brilliant game that's smothered by the very people who would benefit if it succeeds. You don't have to look far in the FPS graveyard before seeing games that deserved better, and Evolve's corpse is so fresh it's almost twitching. No game has a divine right to succeed, though. Zealots like me can only pray Ubisoft sees the light, even if it may already be too late.

Rich Stanton is a videogame journalist who has written for Eurogamer, Vice, The Guardian, and others. His first book, A Brief History of Videogames, was released last year. You can find him on Twitter at @richstanton.