E3 2014: Rainbow Six: Siege Hands-on Preview – Under Siege
6
Sunday, June 22, 2014 @ 02:17 PM
Monday, June 23, 2014 @ 04:47 PM
Monday, June 23, 2014 @ 05:27 PM
Tuesday, June 24, 2014 @ 11:41 PM
Wednesday, June 25, 2014 @ 07:37 PM
Thursday, July 10, 2014 @ 01:51 PM
Sunday, June 22, 2014
We've barricaded the front door, blocked off the lounge and master bedroom, set down a deployable shield and holed up behind it with a perfect view of the staircase. There's no way in hell the counter-terrorists are getting in here and getting their hands on our hostage. Or so we foolishly thought. Playing Rainbow Six: Siege is a baptism of fire, as you'll quickly discover. With Ubisoft's proprietary new destruction system, there really is nowhere safe to hide. An attack can come from any direction even if you've laid traps, barricaded the windows and entrances as a defender, while as a counter-terrorist, carefully planning your entry and exit strategy is paramount. We learn both of these lessons the hard way.
A reboot for the Rainbow Six franchise, Siege fills in for the now cancelled Patriots and aims to take the series back to brass tacks. During E3, Ubisoft Montreal revealed the game's 5v5 asymmetrical Hostage Rescue multiplayer mode, pitting defenders who've seized a hostage inside an unassuming suburban house against a counter-terrorist unit armed with miniaturised camera drones and breaching charges. Each round commences with a 60-second preparation phase, where the defenders set up and fortify the perimeter while the counter-terrorists send in their personal drone cameras to scope out the premises.
The low-profile drones can whizz up flights of stairs and quietly give the CTU team a quick overview of what the defenders are up to inside the house, although if they're discovered they can still be shot and put out of action. While CTU assesses the situation, the defenders are busy fortifying their position with barbed wire and C4 charges, as well as roll-out wooden shutters and reinforcement to the house's interior walls. Once the minute long prep phase has elapsed and CTU has chosen its point of entry, putting it to the vote – rooftop via helicopter, round the back through the garden or in through the front door via the street - the match commences and the tension immediately begins to intensify. Playing first as the counter-terrorists, we're nervous, knowing full well that a single bullet or trap could spell an early end.
For our hands-on, we stuck close to the guy with the riot shield as we chose to go straight in through the front door. Right away, we notice a defender stationed on the landing upstairs, watching the entrance, which the team has neglected to fortify. It's obvious from the get-go that tactics and teamwork are utterly vital in Rainbow Six: Siege. Going it alone and failing to communicate will get you killed very quickly. Stepping on a C4 charge laid in the doorway means we're out of the game pretty quickly, but not before we take one of the bad guys out with a couple of shotgun shells to the chest. And we're still able to assume control of cameras as the round continues, to offer our remaining teammates some guidance.
Having a human hostage to rescue also makes a big difference to the usual capture the flag-type multiplayer. They have their own sense of self-preservation, so they'll offer help whenever possible, but for the most part they're vulnerable and need protecting at all costs. Should the hostage get injured, you're able to revive them, but should he or she die, the team responsible for killing them will ultimately lose the round. This prevents the defending team from simply executing the hostage at the beginning of the match, as so many terrorist players in Counter-Strike seem to enjoy doing. Infiltrating the defender's stronghold, the rest of the team break off and rappel to the first floor, blasting the slats off the windows before vaulting through.
Thanks to the game's destruction system, placing breach charges means you can blow a hole through almost any surface, whether it's the walls, floors or ceilings, and indeed firearms and explosives will have a realistic impact too. Shoot a wall from distance with a pistol and the effect will be negligible, while blasting a surface at close range with a shotgun will leave a smouldering hole, through which you can surprise enemies with a payload of buckshot when they least expect it. This aspect of Rainbow Six: Siege adds a whole new layer of strategy to proceedings, ensuring that you engage your brain and coordinate with your squad in order to achieve success.
It's a lack of communication that proves our undoing when we tackle the second round as the defending team, keeping a watchful eye on the hostage while setting up traps and barriers in the house like Home Alone with assault rifles and shotguns. As we mentioned in the opening paragraph of this preview, we took our time setting everything up just so, waiting behind a big shield, a watchful eye on the stairs. That's when the attackers came bursting through the window behind us, blasting the room to shreds, taking us with it in a hail of gunfire. Still, we were able to see a member of the opposition getting blown up by our C4, so our efforts weren't entirely in vain.
Rainbow Six: Patriots might be no more, but Rainbow Six: Siege already has the potential to be something just as worthwhile. Even on this single map, we can see the immense possibilities for dynamic and interesting gameplay, as scenarios and situations play out in entirely different ways each time you play. We may not have had much luck with our first go, but we're desperate to play again, learning and experimenting with a variety of approaches. A simple game of attackers vs. defenders at face value, the destruction and onus on tactics promises to make Rainbow Six: Siege a multiplayer title that's worth the wait. We can't wait to see what else Ubisoft Montreal has in its arsenal in the run up to the game's launch in 2015.