Game Info Platform Win, PS4, Xbox One Publisher Ubisoft Developer Ubisoft Montreal Release Date Dec 1, 2015

Prior to Rainbow Six Siege, the series that launched the Tom Clancy's brand had kind of fallen off the map. The last proper Rainbow Six release was Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 back in early 2008, more than seven years ago. Rainbow Six: Patriots made a splashy debut in the press in 2012, but had a surprising flame-out just months later, and the series was more or less dead until last year's E3. There, Ubisoft debuted Siege, promising a return to the methodical, surgical gameplay of the series' beginnings. More controversy followed the series this year when it was revealed that Siege would lack any meaningful single-player or campaign component, instead focusing entirely on competitive multiplayer and the esports market. In that regard, Siege takes important lessons from some esports heavy hitters to build a game that sometimes finds its intended sophisticated, satisfying loop. But it also brings some questionable decisions too, blurring the line between retail games and free-to-play in some strange and frustrating ways. When the silence breaks all hell tends to break loose On the surface, Siege is classically Rainbow Six. It features a large, multinational who's who of special operators from various military organizations, seeking to fight a nebulous threat. It's a day-after-tomorrow setting where everything is somewhat recognizable but still high-tech enough to feel futuristic, which has been the Tom Clancy brand's calling card for years. But Rainbow Six Siege casts aside the sweeping cooperative campaign foundations of its most recent franchise predecessor for something particularly focused on adversarial multiplayer in an environment where almost every wall can be destroyed. Just about any surface that isn't concrete can be shot through and torn down to wall studs, making for new points of entry and sneakier lines of fire. Combined with a renewed emphasis on breaching weapons and explosives, Siege adds a lot of potential for unexpected outcomes and crafty strategies. Attacks can come from almost every direction, and even defensive decisions can be countered. But, since resources are limited, there's also a maddening (but interesting) potential for tricking opponents into committing somewhere they shouldn't.

This is reinforced by Siege's basic match structure. Matches in Rainbow Six Siege are ostensibly timed and objective-based, with different mission types dedicated to bomb defusal or hostage rescue, but rounds are just as likely to be player-vs-player bloodbaths; there's no respawn after death, and eliminating an enemy team also counts as a win. Where previous Rainbow Six games allowed players to build loadouts and customize a member of the titular anti-terror task force, now there a total of 20 members of Rainbow to choose from, some dedicated to attack and defense. This feels like a clear allusion to team-based action RPG hybrids (or multiplayer online battle arenas), and Siege is really about how different players can use the tools at their disposal in concert. When you can play Rainbow Six Siege together with four other communicative, cooperative players, something kind of special materializes. I can't remember the last time I played a shooter so hyper-dependent on active teamwork. Rounds start with defenders fortifying their positions and readying each other for the coming invasion by barricading doors and reinforcing walls against conventional small arms fire and explosives. Meanwhile, the attackers roll drones through to try to find their objectives. Once the preparation phase ends, there's a prolonged moment of semi-silence as attackers look for a way in and defenders wait to see where that will happen. Then that silence breaks and all hell tends to break loose. Games between two teams that are working together can be agonizingly close, and victory is rarely guaranteed. This is Siege at its best, when it feels the most competitive, the most like the esport that publisher Ubisoft is trying to position it as. With that as a benchmark, Siege's gameplay loop works very well, and the destructibility adds the sort of room for creativity and improvisation that may be able to keep things interesting. That said, if you're playing alone, without a group of five, you're gambling with your time. Siege can often feel like an exercise in futility playing with people without mics. There's no non-voice method of communication save for a simple marking system. Every game I played where my team didn't speak was like something out of a horror movie, as I waited to be killed in the most horrific ways imaginable. It was the opposite of fun. Even when Siege is working, its map selection also feels weak, given the absence of any single-player campaign to speak of. Not all of Siege's dozen or so maps are small, but the nature of matches limited most action to very small areas of each level. And, for some reason, the bomb/hostage locations tended to be in the same one or two spots repeatedly in certain maps, which removed much need for a big, sweeping investigation of each level on the part of the attackers — though this is probably good, given that the match clock is far too short to allow any meaningful search phase. But some of Siege's other problems are rooted in the free-to-play design sensibilities it borrows less successfully. While Rainbow Six Siege is a full-priced retail title, it has a progression system lifted directly from free-to-play games like League of Legends and Heroes of the Storm. Operators are locked initially, and must be purchased using in-game currency called Renown. Each origin country features four operators — two defenders, and two attackers. The first operator purchased via Renown in each country costs 500 points, the second, 1,000, the third, 1,500 and the fourth, 2,000. Unlocking the first few operators isn't hard, but the time cost rapidly increases as time goes on. Weapon attachments also cost renown, and are Operator-specific, even if two characters have access to the same gun. The character selection issue is a real problem with Siege at launch. You can only use Operators you've unlocked, and unlike games like its aforementioned MOBA inspirations, there's no rotation of "free" characters. Despite that limitation, specific operators can be more useful or useless in specific game types; someone who can detect heartbeats through walls can be critical during a hostage rescue, for example, whereas a character who delivers a cluster bomblet through a breaching charge might well kill the hostage rather than saving them.