Oh boy, I am enjoying Rainbow Six Siege once more. For 4 years I performed nearly every day, after which I burnt out. I’ve solely picked up the sport just a few instances since 2021, and phew, issues certain are completely different. Loading up the principle menu felt like going again house after 4 years of faculty. The partitions are the identical, however the furnishings’s all new and my previous room is a fitness center.
Sure, issues change in Siege in the identical methods they do in a lot 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 performed some fairly radical stuff that challenges its traditions and makes Siege extra tactically fascinating.
Here is a giant one: attackers can now repick their operators through the prep part of each spherical, permitting them to find which operators the opposite group is enjoying and alter their lineup to counter it. In case 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 by way of the spherical, or if may swap your whole Apex Legends loadout for the ultimate combat. The power favors attackers so closely that many gamers have been understandably frightened it’d obliterate steadiness and create an setting the place defenders cannot do something with out getting countered.
The truth, at the very least in my expertise, has been far much less dramatic. In case you’re not within the high 10% of Siege gamers, attacking has at all times been more durable than defending. Most Siege gamers match up with randoms who do not talk, making it practically not possible to coordinate operator picks to suit the scenario. Attacker repick provides particular person gamers extra company on the group to determine a necessity for the spherical (like a tough breacher, or an EMP-haver) and make the swap.
The entire operator choose part simply makes extra sense now, too. The previous 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 should 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 steadiness be damaged by a defender having a long-range gun.
The previous few years of updates have demonstrated a powerful willingness from Ubisoft to interrupt its personal guidelines.
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 essentially the most ineffective defender a gun with magnification, and gamers will flip them right into a formidable spawn peeker ( you, Warden).
Onerous classes
One other change I by no means anticipated to see could be very small, however vastly significant. Ubi determined to nerf Siege’s most distinct function, its destruction, for the sake of steadiness. A couple of years in the past, there was uptick in defenders making extraordinarily small bullet holes in partitions in order that they may simply barely see by way of, 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 modifications 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 finally sided with the “overpowered” camp, and solved the difficulty with an nearly invisible patch—now bullet holes as much as a sure smallness have an opaque display within them that you would be able to solely discover in case you’re actually searching for it.
A couple of different new issues I wasn’t anticipating to love a lot going again to Siege:
- Onerous breach secondary gadget: You not have to choose a devoted exhausting breacher to do some exhausting breaching.
- EMP secondary gadget: An affect grenade that disables devices in a small radius. Lastly, Thatcher is not an insta-lock on assault.
- Statement blocker: A light-weight projector that blocks imaginative and prescient just for drones and cameras, excellent in opposition to a group that is utilizing their drones properly.
- 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 by way of bolstered 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 further injury.” The previous ones have been complicated and wonkily balanced for years, and now all of them have distinct makes use of.
- Taking pictures vary: Siege has one now, and it is unbelievable. Experiment with attachments, take a look at gun injury, and compete in purpose 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 steadiness 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.
Ubisoft has spent years regularly chipping away at Siege’s tough edges.
Within the fashionable period of Siege, it is OK for an operator’s distinctive gadget to be solely typically helpful, as a result of they’ll often carry a lot of secondary utility. Intel-focused attackers like Zero can double as exhausting 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 into a extra unique membership, and extra significant because of this.
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 truly worse than the previous one, and its really terrible battle move expertise—however a lot of its strikes have come as a response to participant conduct Ubi by no means deliberate for in 2015, and have finally made Siege extra tactically fascinating and balanced. It is no marvel Siege has turn into Ubisoft’s most necessary recreation.
Look again at a Siege video from only a handful of years in the past (just like the one under) and it is unbelievable how unrecognizable it’s. Keep in mind when maps have been so darkish you can 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 until I noticed it myself” radical modifications is coming subsequent season when “Fast Play 2.0” arrives, a rework of Siege’s informal mode that may pace up the operator choose part, spherical timer, and prep time. Essentially the most controversial facet of the brand new Fast Play is pre-setups—to shorten the 45-second prep part, informal maps will now include pre-reinforced wall setups. Ubi says the setups shall be helpful and acquainted to common gamers, as they’re based mostly on essentially the most statistically-common conduct on protection. Longtime gamers suppose 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 alternative. Unranked will quickly turn into “Customary.” Ubi is eliminating map and operator bans for Customary (good riddance) and shortening time beyond regulation to only one spherical. The end result, Ubi hopes, shall be a brand new and improved “default” mode that takes the very best of Fast Play and Aggressive into consideration.
Seems like a chance, however that is par for the course with Ubi. I used to suppose Siege’s finest days have been behind it, and whereas it is nonetheless buggy and sometimes bewildering, it is in method higher form than after I performed my first 1,500 hours. I want my different favourite shooters confirmed the identical tenacity to evolve, regulate, or simply straight up delete previous concepts within the identify of a greater recreation.
