Rainbow Six Siege Review

Rainbow Six Siege is a game that has been considerably neglected for the past year. With games like Battlefront, Metal Gear V, or Fallout coming since the end of summer, it is understandable that a multiplayer-only, Ubisoft FPS is not on your Christmas list. It seems to be trying to force an extension of the lifespan of modern military shooters, with a ‘cops and robbers’ theme that we have so often seen in CS:GO, or the infamous Battlefield Hardline. What’s more, the Tom Clancy series has dwelled in a limbo of tolerable games; with unidimensional artistry and popcorn-cinema characters, they never achieve their full potential, albeit having interesting enough gameplay to attract a devoted populace. Nobody hates them, really, and only a few love them. Like the insistent iteration of a prolix series that it is, Siege follows its predecessors, but with a radical change in the Rainbow Six series, and fortunately, not bringing along those gaudy armour sets of yore. Like so, Siege goes awry and full-on hardcore, aspiring to be an alternative to CS:GO.

We have seen this formula a hundred times: two teams, attack/defend an objective, and loads of guns in the way. Shooting people in the face is as commonplace in videogames as murders are in Game of Thrones — whoops, spoilers —, but there’s something that sets this one apart. It is perhaps a very nuanced distinction, but one that establishes the basis of a teeth-gnashing gameplay that merges high-octane mayhem with everlasting seconds of downtime. When my flatmate walks by my room when I’m playing and utters ‘what a boring-looking game!’, he’s not at all wrong. It looks boring, but it plays like — do I dare say it — the best multiplayer shooter that’s come out since CS:GO — oh yes, I went there, Battlefield 4. And you should be getting it for Christmas, as my flatty’s doing.

With the risk of sounding overly apologetic, I will get the grumbles out of the way. There are many arguments that can be made against Siege. In all likelihood, I will stand by all of them, as it pains me to see that mechanics that have been so eloquently crafted are pulled down by mediocre polishing and terrible business management. First of all, you may have noticed that I introduced a cheeky ‘multiplayer-only’ just above. And I did so because I believe that every single singleplayer element of the game is artificially glued-on, in order to satisfy a non-existent demand for individual experiences in these kinds of games. It is also a way to justify the price, in light of the incessant actualisation of accusatory Reddit threads. The single-player levels are nothing more than dragged-out tutorials, and Terrorist Hunt, where you clear a house littered with AI baddies, a raunchy fan-service. The intro hints at the existence of this global terrorist group when, in reality, you will be shooting other special forces members when having fun — namely, in multiplayer —, which turns the long-winded intro into theatrical frippery.

When it comes to playing the online aspect, it’s a bit sloppy, to say the least. Models occasionally clip through walls, and bullets bend corners like it’s nobody’s business, and these appalling insufficiencies in the game feel, at times, as if Ubisoft were taking the piss with its notable commitment to player dissatisfaction. Matchmaking can be a pain, and rubber-banding will have you banging your head against the keyboard, but if you experienced any of the betas, you will barely notice. Voice chat will function at will, and to top it all off, when planets align and everything seems to be working just fine, your friend will be kicked out of the squad due to an error in the servers. Only about one out of seven rounds will be affected by some form or another of any of these issues, and it’s by no means game-breaking. These issues exist, and they are the elephant in the room when you boot up the game. As I said, over 20 hours of online play and, although I’m aware, they haven’t ruined my experience.

Now that we got the house-keeping out of the way, let’s dive into the core of the game: the shooty-shooty bits. As I’ve said, Siege does a very ordinary thing in a very unconventional way. Running, crouching, jumping, shooting bullets and tossing grenades is as articulate as any other AAA shooter, and if you’ve played Battlefield, you will feel as snug as a bug in a rug. Defusing bombs, rescuing hostages or killing all the enemy team — your garden-variety objectives for counter-terrorist units. There is a considerable amount of recoil and bullet spread, but just manageable. Grenades are powerful and hit hard, but projecting it to the right spot is a more knotty feat. The weapons are varied, but just enough so they all feel somewhat different. However, your character is not your run-of-the-mill super soldier. Your operator can die instantly by a well-placed shot of an insignificant pistol, and the explosions around you won’t make dashing around any easier.

If there is something this game excels at is the use of constrained spaces with a meditated, well thought-out, burst of havoc as the attackers storm into a room. As opposed to games like Battlefield, where vast open spaces increase the effect of bullet spread and recoil, in Siege every single shot counts. If you don’t get that bullet in, your opponent will, so aim carefully, and time it right. In Battlefield, missing a shot can often not be a big deal — distances are big enough to allow for this —, but Siege concentrates the action into one or two rooms with plenty of corners and parapets, and a lot of heads popping out as targets. It’s a mixture of reflex and savvy, where sound can often be more telling than sight. Flying papers, hovering dust, flickering lights and smoke can get all in the way so you can’t see your enemy as they breach in and mow down in your team one by one. What’s more, having the light against you doesn’t help to distinguish the enemies that are too far either. As spaces are so enclosed, action gets encapsulated within a few square feet, so destruction and tension all come together for a few nail-biting seconds in which one wrong move can decide the outcome of a match.

Herein lies the efficiency and elegance of Siege: it’s unforgiving and thus, incredibly rewarding. This concentration of the action accentuates every move, be it for better or worse. The times that you’ll die, you will know what you did wrong, and will often applaud the opponent for their bold and original move. The wait for the enemy head to nip out of their cover is strenuous, but timed right can unbalance things so massively that it’s worth the goose bumps. The more you move, the more you will miss, but you can’t stay in that one place either, since they’ve already realised of your brash ploy and are onto you. You want to move fast, and be quiet; pop out, but keep in cover; shoot, but your teammate is in the line of sight. Rounds last five minutes, which means that this vicious cycle of reward and punishment does not take long to repeat itself. Siege offers very enclosed, self-contained bursts of adrenaline that are experienced throughout every stage of the round: from setting up your defences to teabagging your enemies when they’re down.

Moreover, a lucky shot of a novice spraying through a wall can signify your demise if it meets your skull, so be wary. This fragility of your character is used quite cleverly to balance out the game. Hardcore shooters tend to alienate the less committed audience by confining all elements of the game within themselves and minimising the luck factor. In Siege, it never feels unfair to die from a lucky shot: no matter how low it is, there is always a constant risk in the action you’re undertaking, and it is nigh-on impossible to measure every single of your actions without exposing any part of your body to enemy fire. Spraying at a wall and getting a jammy kill is, although perhaps not a skill-based action, one that translates in all players having the off chance to kill somebody. This doesn’t meant that skill is superfluous, but that it’s profoundly dependent on how you engage with the highly destructive environment.

Siege deals with architecture in a fashion that no game has ever done before. Perhaps mildly similar to Hardline, but with all the limitations in space and distance that we’ve seen. It’s not a matter of corners anymore, but of materials and lines. Unlike CS:GO, where good aiming is crucial to come out victorious of each shootout, in Siege you have be aware of the visual cues that each building has and what they mean. Understanding how the enemy team sets up their gadgets and reacting to it accordingly is more important than twitchy fast-paced action. Some weak spots are great choke-points in which to obtain an advantage, depending on whether it’s day or night, or the operators in your team. Some other locations can be breached through only one door, but are so tiny that grenades can have an annihilating effect — if you’re not attempting to rescue the hostage, that is. There is also the need of being aware of the verticality of all Siege maps, which is quite unlike most other shooter games. By allowing players to rappel up and down walls, or smashing the ceiling to smithereens, Siege is creating new lines of sight and channels of information of enemy positions and possible outcomes. All of this becomes essential to bear in mind so as to not concede the upper hand to your rivals.

Siege regularly asks you to assume a specific role and overlook your Kill/Death ratio, as you may be of a better use spotting enemies, setting up defences, or gumming up electronics. The capacities of each operator are clear, but their function in the field can be more nuanced. There are operators whose relevance will be when fortifying walls, like Bandit, who sets up electrifying traps; others only matter in the first few seconds after debris start buzzing through the room, like Pulse, who can detect enemies’ heartbeats; and some others are dispensable after they’ve dropped armour for the rest of the team, such as Rook, who carries around vests for the whole team. The asymmetry of both teams designates particular roles for each player. However, at the end, the anticipated catharsis resolves and shooting is warranted. Luckily, most operators have a selection of weapons with ample variety to be malleable and adopt any required duty, you just have to specialise before the round.

All in all, Siege is a surprise, and an interesting twist on modern shooters. It asks for further thought and awareness of your surroundings, and that steps up the game within this genre. However, it is a game that, as it is in this very moment, will not see much development. Ubisoft’s disregard for server issues may entail that the competitive scene will barely touch upon this game. No ‘pro’ events have been arranged up to this date, and Siege can only be enjoyed in the sufficiency of simple leisure. The unfair bits of the game stem from this very issue, and I can’t help but feel cynical towards Ubi’s commitment to fix them. In fact, the despised microtransactions and the vicious season pass seem to be a corroboration of Ubisoft’s faux-pas when it comes to PR and marketing. This is why Siege feels like it’s being made tumble by its own publishers; a game with incredible potential but maimed prospects. In all fairness, we’re lucky it didn’t have Assassin’s Creed in the title.