Developed By: Ubisoft Montreal
Published By: Ubisoft
Release Date: December 1
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4 (Reviewed) , Xbox One
Price: $60
Some of the most engaging and memorable moments in Rainbow Six Siege are the few seconds right before the shit hits the fan. Putting up barricades and placing C4 in the most opportunistic spot can make or break your game plan, and if you don’t have a game plan or at least some sort of coordination, you’re likely to get picked off quickly. Siege’s gameplay is top-notch and even more refreshing if you’ve just come from playing Star Wars Battlefront, which has a less-than-refined combat system. If gameplay is king, however, then you need a good support system to go around it, and that seems to be missing here. In fact, the game can sometimes feel underwhelming.
So lets start with game modes, which shouldn’t take too long. There are two. Multiplayer and Terrorist Hunt. Both are fun, but I can’t imagine a large group of people diving in and playing for more than a few weeks. This is the kind of game I would expect a hardcore group of people to play for years while everybody else moves on because the magic wore off. Mind you I never got bored playing through those two modes, but once something else comes along I wont return.
There is a lot of waiting around in this game, though thankfully it’s not all bad. The matchmaking can take awhile, but it’s nothing outrageous unless you’re a reckless player who dies early. My first jump into a match was interesting because you think you’re smarter than the game but after you get your face kicked in over and over again, you start to learn the basics and even start to excel in certain situations. And if you run in guns blazing, you may have to watch the rest of the match play out from the support mode.
Fun Bunch
Rainbow Six: Siege’s leveling system is weird at first. There is not a campaign or real ‘story’ to Siege, yet when you start, everything is locked. The game recommends you unlock six ‘Operators’ before even trying multiplayer, which means you need to earn ‘Renown’ points, which means you’re stuck watching in-game tutorials or playing ‘Situations’. Situations aren’t near as fun to play as multiplayer modes, and thanks to microtransactions, Renown points are easy to get if you simply pay for them. It’s gross and shameless. Everything is locked away at the beginning, and the only way to progress normally is to grind your ass off or pay for it.
“Ok everybody say surprise on 3!”
The Operators are an impressive bunch. My favorite attack member was ‘Thermite,’ who is able to blow through most walls with a breach charge, and my favorite defense member was ‘Kapkan,’ who is able to set traps in doorways. There are tons of class-based characters, more than I thought even possible! There are so many ways to break into or defend a house, and they are all represented here. From ‘Sledge’ hammering down a wall or ‘Castle’ building a metal scale barricade to block passage, it’s a cat-and-mouse game that is always turning you on your head. Each map has enough opportunity for the Operators, but some more than others. There are walls to bust through or trap doors to fortify; there is just so much to do in the thirty seconds before the match begins and it’s great. Running around and putting up defenses while the attackers send in drones to find their objective is a mini game all in itself.
This isn’t Call of Duty. If you play that way you’ll die. A lot. You have to be smart and take on these maps the same way you take on the other players, and there are advantages and disadvantages to each map. You either have to work together or be smarter than the other team. It’s a fun game of chess that is sometimes bogged down by it’s progression system and lacking game modes. I could play more Siege simply for its gameplay, but at some point I’m going to hit a wall and never come back.
Weather you’re rappelling up to kick in a window on the second floor or you’re shooting through the floor to take out that last enemy, Siege has plenty to do in between the menu screens but not a lot outside of that.
My early gameplay below (lots of cross chat).
