The term “live-service game” has, in the last few months, become synonymous with enormous financial disasters. Hundreds of millions, possibly billions, have been lost over the past year to the hubristic concept of games people will want to keep playing, and investing in, for years to come. But it’s vital to remember there are live-service games that are still raking it in. One of the most impressive success stories is Ubisoft’s Rainbow 6 Siege, which ten years on from release is due to reveal a major update which is being claimed as “a new era.”
Rainbow Six Siege X is described by Ubisoft as “the biggest transformation in the game’s history,” with the obvious aim to refresh the aging multiplayer game for the foreseeable future. This will involve new game modes, “deepened tactical gameplay,” and most likely a significant graphical tidying up. The ambiguity here is because, in the tiresome way of modern life, this is all based on a teaser for a teaser, the announcement that there’s to be The Rainbow Six Siege X Showcase on March 13. It’s to be a live event, taking place in Atlanta, Georgia, but obviously will be streamed online via the game’s Twitch channel.
Siege first launched in 2015, and was a flabby Counter-Strike-me-do, with poor sales. Ubisoft cannily switched to the live-service model, and over the next few years persisted with the game, reinventing it with free DLC, until it had become something enormously loved, and hugely successful. Yes indeed, it’s hard to imagine, but instead of just junking years of work and hundreds of millions of dollars spent, developers instead worked incredibly hard to bring the game to the point of massive popularity. Bewildering.
Ten years on, it looks like Ubisoft is taking a big gamble, and meddling with the format. All changes bring the threat of a core player-base’s fury, but it looks like the goal with the showcase is to ease everyone in to the second decade of the game’s existence with careful explanation. (There will always be those who would prefer their favorite game wither and die than ever evolve or advance, but they need to shhhhhhhh.)
Here’s a thought: The brief information about the changes mentions “deepened tactical gameplay,” and I can’t help wondering if there might be a desire to return to Rainbow Six’s roots. When the first game came out in 1998, it was wholly different to the R6 people know today. Most significantly, you didn’t control a single character, but rather an entire squad. Those first few games were about planning—you we given detailed briefings about what your team needed to achieve, and then you strategized your approach all before ever showing up. Played best, the bit with soldiers running around was just the unfolding of pre-determined plans, with on-the-fly improvisation if something went wrong.
It’d be fascinating if Siege were to think about adding modes that re-evoked the series’ original spirit.
We’ll find out what Ubisoft are actually up to in just under a month.
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