Rainbow Six Siege Beta Preview

The beta is now over, and after the thrill, the emotions and the nearly ever-prolonging ride, the dust has settled and we can look back at what Rainbow Six: Siege has left behind. It is perhaps useful to make a quick summary of this past week, and the news that has brought. We will probably get some perspective on how the game’s been so far, and hopefully, we can speculate more firmly about its prospects.

We signed up for the beta in early September, scheduled to be released on the 24th of September. After the announcement that all maps to be released post-launch, and ‘other additional content’, would be free of charge, there was nothing but excitement and hopes. But things weren’t exactly as we were promised. The 24th came and we all refreshed our inboxes, expecting to see that much anticipated email from Ubisoft, which was nowhere to be seen. Soon, the news spread: access to the beta was being given away in waves. With the beta lasting only three days, it is understandable why so many people were upset by some play time being taken from them.

 So much testosterone... Around the same time people were compulsively typing angry rants on reddit about not having got access to the beta yet, news came out about the lack of singleplayer campaign in the game. It seemed that the game was narrowing its target audience, for both the beta and the full release. All the excitement and anticipation had suddenly turned into contempt and disappointment for both Ubisoft and the game. Admittedly, the extension of the beta period another three days gave a glimmer of hope to all players, which by the 27th were sinking too many hours into the game.

Jumping into the game was still presenting itself arduous and, all in all, not much fun. Matchmaking was all over the place, tossing an uncountable amount of random errors at players as they were trying to join a game, or triggering host migrations in the worst moments. Ubisoft did warn about these issues beforehand, so those keeping an eye to their site soon figured out that even though it was difficult to begin rappelling down walls, it was indeed possible with a bit of patience.

After we endured the matchmaking process, there we were, blowing up walls and piloting our drones in-between the enemies’ legs, as they run amuck setting up their defences. There’s already plenty of information and footage about how the game plays, all coming mainly from the closed alpha: the Planning Phase, where you choose your operator and the spawn point; the Preparation Phase, where you scout the area with your drone or fortify the room to be defended; and the cathartic Action Phase, where people shoot each other in the face.

 Believe it or not, that guy got me And I've got to say, I am very surprised by how good this game is. There’s variety in each operator and weapon, not to mention the uncountable ways to breach into a room a wreak havoc. Rappelling head-down and shooting through a small hole in the wall is certainly a methodical, tense and skill-demanding task, and Rainbow Six: Siege is filled with dreading moments like this. Not only as an attacker, but defending your objective is a climatic and nerve-racking wait, where you are constantly trying to outwit the opponent with your traps and skill. It is somewhat reassuring to know that in Rainbow Six: Siege, skill doesn't come from a quick reaction time or proficiency with the controller, but rather maximising the usage of all gadgets, adapting to every situation and overall, communication, coordination and teamwork.

During the beta, among the few modes that were available there was Terrohunt, a mode brought back from previous Rainbow Six games, where you — solo or with other players — must breach into one of the maps and kill every AI-controlled thug recklessly running towards you. However, I noticed that most of the people primarily dive into the PvP modes, in which you either have to defend or attack one or two objectives. These modes had quick rounds that lasted under four minutes, but they felt like an eternity. There’s a lot of mind games involved, and much of it, particularly from the defenders’ point of view, revolves around camping out the opponent. Don’t let this deter you though; waiting for an attacker to turn up through a door is incredibly dynamic, as more often than not, the attacker will have plenty of gadgets to give you a surprise or two.

 The face is always a good place to aim at Nevertheless, as the week passed and we snapped out of the enrapturing of the first few days, we all started noticing that bullet that headshot us on the knee. Or that kill cam that killed you when you were very much under cover. And so on. As the beta was extended three more days, every suspect about these ‘bugs’ became crystal clear. Here at GameGrin, we’ve already discussed the need for this title to step up its game and refine all aspects regarding netcode, and the consistency of its gameplay. If this game aspires to compare itself with games like Counter-Strike in terms of competitive play, there is a big consensus among all who’ve played it about its need to improve its netcode. Although perhaps this is one of the main reasons why the game was pushed to the 1st of December, from the 13th of October.

However, once this is fixed, there’s a possibility that Ubisoft keep creating and introducing content for the game, constantly improving and not backstabbing their audience by putting a price to some of this content. Once this happens, half a year after its release, the game may appear in some crazy sale and then, it may be worth buying and committing to its competitive play. Until then, we are better off waiting for new impressions and reviews to come.