Rainbow Six Siege Preview - E3 2014

Ubisoft is a publisher that always expects the best from its development teams. It is not often that the French company releases sub-par titles, so when it was revealed that Rainbow Six Patriots has gone back to the drawing board, it was clear the initial ideas were not working. At E3 this year, we got a first look at the re-reveal of that project, Rainbow Six Siege. It is a multiplayer focused tactical FPS in the spirit of the original games in the franchise, but with a decidedly modern approach and a focus on destruction and action.

We were told that the game was rebooted back in January of 2013, and became what we saw at the show soon thereafter. Siege is a tactical shooter, where the Rainbow Six team leads an assault on a location, and a group of hostiles attempt to counter that assault. The basic idea is that the location (in the case of our demo, a suburban home) is a fortress – meant to be barricaded, infiltrated, and altogether destroyed in the process. The two teams are made up of five players per side, and cooperation is key to success. We saw a demo that was similar to that shown during Ubisoft’s E3 press conference, however it was being played live right in front of us.

Each match has a time limit, to ensure that the action never stops and putting additional pressure on the players. The round goes through two main stages; observe and plan, then execute. The hostiles start off inside the home, they have a hostage and the goal is to prevent his or hers escape. During the first stage of the round, this team of terrorists barricade the home based on their plan of defense. They setup explosive traps, barricade windows and doors to limit visibility, and setup shields. Organizing the defence is as crucial as your ability to aim, and any team should be able to withstand the most fierce of assaults with good planning.

In the meantime, the Rainbow Six team is doing some planning of their own. Depending on how quickly the defenders work, the visibility inside the fortress could be non-existent, so players can send in a small drone to scout out the area, mentally map out each room and the terrorist’s defensive positions. Once the hostage is located, the team picks their entry point (or multiple) and gets ready to breach.

By this point, the initial 60 second clock has likely ran out, and both teams were ready to engage. Two members of Rainbow Six entered via the back door, while the other three blasted through an upstairs bedroom window. Right away, two of the terrorists were down. The team cautiously proceeded forward, on their way to the hostage room. In order to get a better vantage point on the enemies within, the team used a shotgun to blast through an adjacent wall. During the many shootouts in the round, the house’s environment was heavily damaged, including holes in walls from gunfire, or even setup explosives that created whole new doorways. With most of the enemy team down, the Rainbow Six crew grabbed the hostage and led her outside. The remaining terrorist fell moments later.

The objective of any match is either to eliminate the entire terrorist team or to rescue the target. For the bad guys, the goal is similar – eliminate Rainbow Six, or hold out long enough for the match clock to run out and prevent a rescue. In the demo, the action phase was set on a three minute timer, and though that could change by the time Siege is released, it’s clear that the current design goal is for matches to be tactical but quick. Perhaps with bigger maps, those limits will be adjusted.

As mentioned earlier, the goal for the kidnappers is to hold out, so they must use the house to their advantage. During the second match we observed, now from the other perspective, the team had the same 60 seconds to barricade every window and door they could find. However, to keep a view on the street in front of the house, they shot out a corner of the window covering. The barricade items that the defenders create are just as destructible as the rest of the house. Once the action starts, the defenders are able to keep an eye on the rest of the property via security cameras, as they do not have the drone or breaching gear.

Watching the team defend, it was obvious that different tactics had to be applied in order to succeed. Moving the hostage is always an option if the R6 team got too close and was about to pin them down in a room. Using the civilian as a shield was a good deterrent to allow for escape, while the rest of your team could use this distraction to flank the assault team using the very same breached walls they created upon entry. The team could also simply shoot through walls, as mentioned, though that would also give away their position.

The action in Siege looked and sounded fierce, though we did not have a chance to play it ourselves. Walls crumbled, bodies fell and both teams were always on the move, trying to avoid getting trapped in a corner. Weapons had a good amount of recoil, adding to the challenge of trying to aim through an opening in the wall. Players could seemingly take a decent amount of damage to ensure that firefights didn’t end too quickly.

While Rainbow Six Siege is not going to play the same way as the original games or similar titles such as SWAT, it still looks a promising entry in the genre that has seen better days. The fact that players have to plan their approach and be tactical during combat will appeal to fans looking for shooters that require some thought. On the other hand, action fans will enjoy the visceral gunplay, dynamic nature of the matches and the destructible environments. Look for Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege in 2015 on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.