Ubisoft deserves a heck of a lot of kudos for how its handled Rainbow Six Siege. When the game was announced as a multiplayer-focused game without much in the way of single-player content, it was met with disdain from old fans who yearned for the single-player and co-op gameplay. When it was released in December 2015, it seemed like it was released to die. And for a while, it seemed as if it was. While it was a white-knuckle bit of exhilaration – and one of the most cohesive and tense multiplayer games I’d played – it struggled to really find an audience.
Ubisoft kept at it though, and now, four and a bit years later, we’re in Season 5 of Rainbow Six Siege, with the game continuing to grow its dedicated userbase. Ubisoft’s goal was to have the game be a viable esport, and it seems they’ve succeeded. While it’s no longer occupying the top spot, for a while earlier today, Rainbow Six Siege was top of Twitch – with over a quarter of a million people watching the game’s annual event, the Six Invitational.
Ubisoft has poured an incredible amount of energy and effort into Rainbow Six Siege – and it’s an effort that’ll continue into the next generation. Speaking to Windows Central, Ubisoft game director Leroy Athanassof said that Rainbow Six Siege will head to the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X at launch.
“I can’t give you a date is because those dates are, in the end, on the people doing the next-gen consoles,” said Athanassof. “What I can tell you is that we are going to be on [PS5 and Xbox Series X] from launch.”
The games will apparently come with cross-play, allowing current and next-gen players shoot each other. That cross-play won’t necessarily extend to PC though.
“I don’t think there will ever be console cross-play with PC. The only way we could do that kind of stuff is by letting you do that if you want to. By default, you’re always with console. But if you want to match with these players, to have better matchmaking, or whatever, and get your ass kicked by a keyboard and mouse, up to you.”
Anyway, I think it’s likely we’ll see several current gen “live” games like Rainbow Six Siege come to the next systems. Epic would be braindead not to bring Fortnite across, and EA would be silly not to have Apex Legends on the new consoles.
Rainbow Six Siege though, continues to flourish,. The game is preparing for its newest operators in Iana, an Attacker, and Oryx, a Defender who’ll be part of the upcoming Operation Void Edge – which goes live on test servers later today. Rainbow Six Siege recently had its local servers go live, but – as tends to be the case, and is something we’ve regularly warned against – seems to have had a negative effect on the local game, by limiting the number of people playing, extending wait times for matches and reducing the general skill ceiling.
Last Updated: February 17, 2020
HairyEwok
February 17, 2020 at 12:55
New Operators and continuously restructuring old maps to make them feel fresh again helped this game a heap.
Jacques Van Zyl
February 17, 2020 at 12:55
The whole keyboard and mouse thing hardly seems a reason to not allow cross-play when most games/consoles support plugging in a keyboard and mouse. Rainbow 6: Siege included.