Rainbow Six: Siege Will Live or Die By its Destructive Multiplayer
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Wednesday, October 21, 2015 @ 04:07 PM
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Thursday, October 29, 2015 @ 01:38 AM
Monday, May 30, 2016 @ 01:44 AM
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Try as I might, I just can't help thinking that releasing Rainbow Six: Siege without a single-player campaign may be a bad idea. To date, the Rainbow Six series has prided itself on being a tactical shooter based upon the works of Tom Clancy during its 17 years, but without a story, it seems like Counter-Strike with destructible walls. Not that such a description is a bad thing. And though Siege isn't the first multiplayer shooter to toy with destruction, it might be one of the best so far.
There's also an argument for solo play in fact being already present in Rainbow Six: Siege, in the Terrorist Hunt mode (not called Terrohunt anymore, thankfully), which is playable on your own against the game's AI at normal, hard or realistic levels of difficulty. Or there's the new single-player Situations mode, where you're briefed on a certain objective on a set map by your field commander, Six, played by Angela Bassett. Neither are a replacement for a proper story mode, but it's better than nothing.
Situations are essentially solo training missions where you're given an operator, a map, a loadout and sent in with a goal to complete. There'll be eleven of these to play through at launch, ranging from clearing out terrorists aboard a grounded plane, to rescuing a hostage from an office facility. Each of these missions lasts a matter of minutes, and are really just a primer for the main event: multiplayer.
As you'll already be well aware, Rainbow Six: Siege is a 5v5 affair, with its various modes offering tactical shooty bangs across a variety of maps that each present their own approach. At the beginning of each match, your team chooses their preferred Operator, tweaks their loadout, and then votes for their entry point of choice. From here, you'll need to communicate, deciding the best way into the building without getting your head blown off within the first three seconds.
During our extensive hands-on session, we had the chance to try objective-based modes revolving around defending or deactivating a bomb and protecting or attempting to extract a hostage. Suffice it to say, hurling grenades around willy-nilly is not a great idea in either mode. However, using your drone camera to mark enemies and locate the bomb/hostage, and being sure to carefully utilise the right tools for each job usually leads to a successful mission, if you can stay alive that is.
Naturally, this all hinges entirely upon how effectively you communicate and work as a team. Lone wolves won't last long in Rainbow Six: Siege, even if you're as handy as I am with Sledge's shotgun and door-smashing lump hammer. There are 20 Operators to choose from including my personal favourite, Sledge, and each has their own set of expertise and gadgets.
You might not be able to customise your chosen Operator, but you have a couple of weapons and tools to choose from before each match, like Thermite's incendiary breach charges, IQ's electronic signature detector, Jäger's 'Magpie' charge, Tachanka's deployable turret or Doc's reviving Stim Pistol.
This is one way in which Rainbow Six: Siege injects some variety into proceedings, changing up the role that's determined by your chosen Operator. Ubisoft Montreal is also pinning Siege's long-term prospects on the game's destructibility, presenting you with multiple ways in which to break into buildings and then blast holes in the internal walls and designated sections of the floor/ceiling.
Defenders can drop bundles of barbed wire onto the floor to slow Attackers, barricade doors and set booby traps, while Attackers can rappel to higher windows, smash barricades or provide sniper support from a nearby vantage point. The Attackers' role is to create chaos, confusion and misdirection, while the Defenders fortify and hunker down. The gameplay dynamics are superb.
There are a great deal of options at your fingertips then, and Rainbow Six: Siege has the maps, modes and characters to support it all. But what's to stop Siege suffering the same fate as multiplayer-only games like Evolve, where few people are still playing mere months after launch? Ubisoft reckons that a dedicated team devoted to maintaining and balancing the game will help, as well as a constant stream of free maps and other content. “We want to keep the community united and engaged,” says Community Developer Genevieve Forget.
Whether Ubisoft Montreal will succeed in keeping players engaged in Rainbow Six: Siege is questionable. There's no doubt that the studio is making all of the right moves, with free post-launch content being a big plus, but Siege lives and dies by its focus upon tactical play, and if you're unable to play with a team that knows how to communicate properly, Rainbow Six: Siege might not be something that you'll frequently want to return to. I had enormous fun playing with people I knew in a LAN setup, but sat on a couch, with your ears ensconced in a headset, it's an entirely different proposition.
But then again, perhaps Rainbow Six: Siege will confound such concerns and build a fervent community base in the same vein as Counter-Strike's passionate audience, who regularly play the game and love it. Rainbow Six: Siege certainly has all of the right tools; let's just hope it can break through the wall of potential limitations and prove to be a multiplayer game worth coming back to again and again.
Rainbow Six: Siege is out on 1st December for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.