Review: Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege

The wait for another entry in the Rainbow Six series has been long and tainted by cancellations and complete overhauls. The next installment was supposed to be Rainbow Six : Patriots, which followed Rainbow tackling domestic terrorists across the USA. Siege doesn’t seem to have been influenced by this project at all and is instead a 5v5 competitive shooter. It has lost the essence of what makes a Rainbow Six game. If this had came out as a £15 PSN title, I would overlook the use of the franchises license and its lack of content, however this game does not justify the full £40-£55 it asks a potential player to pay. It’s worth noting that whilst Star Wars Battlefront is receiving hate online for its lack of content, it is still far ahead of Siege. All of this combined with a game that lacks the tightness of shooting found in games like Black Ops 3, makes Siege one of the most bland shooters of the year.

Content wise Siege is a meager offering. It has one competitive game mode that boils down to 5v5, no respawns, with various objectives. It is no doubt aimed at the hardcore crowd and the variation across the games 11 maps help diversify the experience.
Novice players will spend most of their time dying and watching the rest of the match from the spectator view. The lack of team death-matches and respawns, makes the learning curb steep, but I can appreciate its aim to create realistic combat scenarios for hardcore players. It is nonetheless inexcusable for a multiplayer game to have one game mode and charge full price. While it offers plenty of different ‘operators’ and a variety of guns, the game still cannot hide that it is a shallow experience. It does come with ten single player missions, but these act as tutorials and are extremely dull. My favourite mode of Siege is the return of a Rainbow Six classic, Terrorist Hunt, a co-op mode where you hunt down AI enemies across the games 11 maps. While fun, its not without its problems and the AI is often inconsistent, killing you in a couple shots one minute and being completely oblivious to your attacks the next. Siege lacks in content and lacks in fun.

In terms of mechanics, especially shooting, Siege cannot compare to the likes of Call of Duty or Battlefield. Shooting is often inaccurate and near impossible without iron sights. Bullets feel like they are not doing enough damage and in a game that require quick reflexes, this is a massive problem. More times than not, you feel as though your death is a result of the game, rather than your own fault. One feature I really like is the rappelling up and down the exterior of houses, but most of what Rainbow Six does is done much better in similar shooters.

The outrage against games like Battlefront is because of its lack of single player, yet that series has never really had an extensive single-player. Rainbow Six on the other hand, has always been known for an expansive and a customisable campaign, with the series famous multiplayer adding to the experience. What Ubisoft have done with the series feels like they are simply calling the game Rainbow Six to sell more units. It feels like a greatly watered down shooter, that would be more at home as a cheaper downloadable title than a full priced one. While it may find a hardcore following, it will probably be forgotten compared to other shooters released in the run up to Christmas.

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege is available now on Xbox One, PS4 and PC.