Oh boy, I am enjoying Rainbow Six Siege once more. For 4 years I performed virtually every day, after which I burnt out. I’ve solely picked up the sport just a few occasions since 2021, and phew, issues certain are totally different. Loading up the primary menu felt like going again house after 4 years of school. The partitions are the identical, however the furnishings’s all new and my outdated room is a gymnasium.
Sure, issues change in Siege in the identical methods they do in a number of video games—new maps, characters, and balancing tweaks shake up the meta, however the previous few years of updates have demonstrated a powerful willingness from Ubisoft to interrupt its personal guidelines. The eight-year-old FPS has achieved some fairly radical stuff that challenges its traditions and makes Siege extra tactically fascinating.
Here is an enormous one: attackers can now repick their operators through the prep section of each spherical, permitting them to find which operators the opposite workforce is enjoying and alter their lineup to counter it. When you’d requested 2017 me whether or not that was a good suggestion, I might have most likely laughed in your face. That is like if CS:GO let attackers rebuy weapons midway via the spherical, or if may swap your total Apex Legends loadout for the ultimate battle. The flexibility favors attackers so closely that many gamers have been understandably fearful it’d obliterate stability and create an setting the place defenders cannot do something with out getting countered.
The fact, at the least in my expertise, has been far much less dramatic. When you’re not within the prime 10% of Siege gamers, attacking has all the time been more durable than defending. Most Siege gamers match up with randoms who do not talk, making it practically unattainable to coordinate operator picks to suit the state of affairs. Attacker repick offers particular person gamers extra company on the workforce to establish a necessity for the spherical (like a tough breacher, or an EMP-haver) and make the change.
The entire operator choose section simply makes extra sense now, too. The outdated method of guessing how the defenders have been going to play and hoping you have been proper wasn’t intuitive. Defenders, who cannot repick, nonetheless need to play a guessing recreation with attackers, however Ubi has damaged different unwritten guidelines to favor them. Again in my day, it was understood that defenders get SMGs and shotguns whereas attackers get the extra {powerful} assault rifles and LMGs—lest stability be damaged by a defender having a long-range gun.
That did not actually occur both. Siege experimented with an LMG on protection method again in 2018, and has solely gotten looser with weapon restrictions since then. Laser gate defender Aruni can use a DMR and Thunderbird has a straight-up assault rifle. Siege nonetheless does battle with balancing firepower with defenders, however Ubi has regularly found that it has much less to do with the weapons, and extra to do with scopes: give even probably the most ineffective defender a gun with magnification, and gamers will flip them right into a formidable spawn peeker (taking a look at you, Warden).
Arduous classes
One other change I by no means anticipated to see may be very small, however massively significant. Ubi determined to nerf Siege’s most distinct characteristic, its destruction, for the sake of stability. A number of years in the past, there was uptick in defenders making extraordinarily small bullet holes in partitions in order that they might simply barely see via, spot the vaguest trace of an enemy on the opposite facet, and rating straightforward kills. Some gamers argued the technique was too simply abused, others mentioned it was a intelligent use of destruction.
Y6S2 brings a number of adjustments to Rainbow Six Siege together with:Particular person bullet holes not have a line of sight ?Which change are you most excited for? pic.twitter.com/1wlPI99HO6June 1, 2021
Ubi in the end sided with the “overpowered” camp, and solved the problem with an virtually invisible patch—now bullet holes as much as a sure smallness have an opaque display inside them which you could solely discover should you’re actually in search of it.
A number of different new issues I wasn’t anticipating to love a lot going again to Siege:
- Arduous breach secondary gadget: You not have to select a devoted arduous breacher to do some arduous breaching.
- EMP secondary gadget: An affect grenade that disables devices in a small radius. Lastly, Thatcher is not an insta-lock on assault.
- Commentary blocker: A light-weight projector that blocks imaginative and prescient just for drones and cameras, good towards a workforce that is utilizing their drones effectively.
- Gonne-6: An “Ash-in-a-can” launcher that replaces your pistol, however can destroy bulletproof devices
- Fuze: His explosive pucks can now pierce proper via strengthened partitions, making him infinitely extra helpful than he was for the primary seven years of Siege
- Attachments: There are extra scope sorts, and selecting a muzzle is now so simple as “do I would like higher recoil, to have a suppressed gun, or do some additional injury.” The outdated ones have been complicated and wonkily balanced for years, and now all of them have distinct makes use of.
- Capturing vary: Siege has one now, and it is implausible. Experiment with attachments, take a look at gun injury, and compete in intention trials.
Ubi has spent years regularly chipping away at Siege’s tough edges, each technical and in its design, and the work exhibits. The brand new scopes, laid again weapon restrictions, and an expanded secondary gadget pool have given Ubisoft extra stability knobs to show, and that is led to extra fascinating operators. Again when attackers both had claymores or frags and defenders both had C4s or barbed wire, deciding who bought what felt arbitrary.
Within the trendy period of Siege, it is OK for an operator’s distinctive gadget to be solely generally helpful, as a result of they’ll normally convey a number of secondary utility. Intel-focused attackers like Zero can double as arduous breachers in a pinch and roamers can watch their very own again with bulletproof cameras. As a byproduct of extra helpful secondary devices, operators who can choose omnipotent C4s and frag grenades have turn out to be a extra unique membership, and extra significant consequently.
The way forward for Siege
Not each large swing connects—I might like a refund on Ubi’s more and more cheesy style in premium cosmetics, the odd map rework that is really worse than the outdated one, and its actually terrible battle cross expertise—however lots of its strikes have come as a response to participant habits Ubi by no means deliberate for in 2015, and have in the end made Siege extra tactically fascinating and balanced. It is no marvel Siege has turn out to be Ubisoft’s most vital recreation.
Look again at a Siege video from only a handful of years in the past (just like the one beneath) and it is unbelievable how unrecognizable it’s. Keep in mind when maps have been so darkish you may disappear right into a darkish nook, shields have been a desync catastrophe, and client-sided particles and ragdolls may get you killed? I am unable to imagine what we used to place up with.
Ubi is not slowing down, both. One other a type of “could not imagine it except I noticed it myself” radical adjustments is coming subsequent season when “Fast Play 2.0” arrives, a rework of Siege’s informal mode that can pace up the operator choose section, spherical timer, and prep time. Probably the most controversial side of the brand new Fast Play is pre-setups—to shorten the 45-second prep section, informal maps will now include pre-reinforced wall setups. Ubi says the setups will probably be helpful and acquainted to common gamers, as they’re primarily based on probably the most statistically-common habits on protection. Longtime gamers assume the setups will make protection more durable and fewer aggressive.
On the identical time that Ubi is making Fast Play much less aggressive, it is also turning Unranked into basically a Fast Play substitute. Unranked will quickly turn out to be “Customary.” Ubi is eliminating map and operator bans for Customary (good riddance) and shortening extra time to only one spherical. The consequence, Ubi hopes, will probably be a brand new and improved “default” mode that takes the most effective of Fast Play and Aggressive under consideration.
Appears like a chance, however that is par for the course with Ubi. I used to assume Siege’s finest days have been behind it, and whereas it is nonetheless buggy and sometimes bewildering, it is in method higher form than once I performed my first 1,500 hours. I want my different favourite shooters confirmed the identical tenacity to evolve, alter, or simply straight up delete outdated concepts within the title of a greater recreation.