Rainbow Six: Siege has been on the market since December 2015. The tactical shooter is mainly known for its tactical depth and unique gaming experience. MeinMMO author Dariusz Müller tells you in the context of Find Your Next Game why the shooter is still one of the best in 2022.
Attention is important: Rainbow Six Siege is currently unique because the shooter is different from all others in many ways. You must shed all habits from CoD, Battlefield, and others to be successful in this extensive title. Wandering aimlessly around the map and engaging in every fight does not work just like listening to loud Dubstep and running straight into the enemies. Being attentive is the be-all and end-all.
You must pay attention to your surroundings; otherwise, you might overlook a booby trap in the doorframe or the hidden camera that reveals your position. In any case, you definitely want to avoid one thing in Rainbow Six Siege: the enemies knowing exactly where you are.
Once your position is known, you must prepare for a quick operator to flank you or a nitro cell with remote ignition to send you to oblivion, which clever defenders placed under the wooden floor beneath your feet and detonated.
If you have never seen the launch trailer for Rainbow: Six Siege, you can catch up on that now:
The gameplay of Rainbow Six: Siege
What is Rainbow Six Siege about? In Rainbow Six: Siege, everything revolves around the siege of a building. The PvP shooter divides players into two competing teams, each consisting of 5 operators. The defenders must protect various objectives against the attackers.
The defenders have the unique abilities of their characters as well as gadgets like barbed wire and mobile shields at their disposal. They spawn in the building and prepare it for the attack of the enemies. They can reinforce up to 10 walls with metal, barricade doors and windows, close holes in walls and floors, and occupy various positions and rooms within the building.
The attackers must capture the objectives within a timer and can also access the unique abilities of their characters. Additionally, they have gadgets like fragmentation and flashbang grenades or breaching charges to destroy walls and floors. They spawn outside the building and can use a rope to access the roof or enter a room through a window – the floor does not matter.
The winner of a round is the team that either eliminates all 5 opposing players or captures the objective or, in the case of defense, protects it until the timer runs out.
Which objective you must capture depends on the game mode played. If you are playing the competitive “Ranked” mode, you must always defuse one of two bombs. In the more casual mode “Quick Match,” you can also enable the subcategories “Hostage” and “Secure Area,” allowing for hostage rescue or the securing of a biohazard container.
The chess among shooters
Errors are severely punished: In Ubisoft’s tactical shooter, you must play every single round with brains. Compared to other shooters, Rainbow Six: Siege is roughly the chess of shooters. Every playable character has different abilities and strengths and should be utilized accordingly.
With the right combination of different characters, you force your opponents to act and determine what they should do next based on your strategy. For example, if you are defending a bomb by occupying the room above it and observing the entrances to the bomb room through holes in the floor, your opponents must first drive you out from above before they can defuse the bomb.
Use your abilities wisely: It is also important not to use your abilities recklessly, as that can backfire significantly and leave your own team in checkmate.
The defenders have gadgets that prevent you from blowing up a wall. The EMP grenades from the operator “Thatcher” temporarily disable such operator gadgets. They can become crucial to allow your teammates the tactical opportunity to blow up a wall.
However, if you have already foolishly thrown away the EMP grenades before the disruptive gadgets at the wall to be blown up were removed, this situation won’t arise. This decreases your chances of winning the round since a wall remains intact that could have brought your team victory.
Similarly, a wall where a hole is supposed to be shot can become a disadvantage if it is reinforced with metal. A wall that must be reinforced to provide cover and safety should never be destroyed.
Operators provide tactical diversity
The operators are the playable characters of the tactical shooter. They all differ fundamentally and have different abilities, weapons, and gadgets like fragmentation grenades and claymores (anti-personnel mines). Currently, there are 64 different operators in Rainbow Six Siege – 32 defenders and 32 attackers.
You can earn a new operator, among other ways, by spending 25,000 renown. This is the in-game currency of the tactical shooter that you get by finishing a match or a challenge.
At the start of each round, you choose an operator that cannot be played by multiple players at the same time, similar to the champions in League of Legends.
Additionally, you should choose your operator thoughtfully, as your team’s composition significantly affects your chances of winning. The operators form the backbone of the tactical shooter, as each brings a unique playstyle.
Many operators work exceptionally well in collaboration with another. Some situations even require the combined use of different abilities. Thus, it is already important when selecting the character you play to make tactical decisions and think about how you want to proceed.
A creative composition of your team will not only be rewarded with increased chances of winning but also provides a varied gaming experience. With the wide range of different team compositions, it is possible for nearly every played round to feel different – even if you play the same map multiple times in a row. Therefore, you have an influence on how monotonous or varied your playstyle is.
Unmatched destructibility of the map offers tactical finesse
This is the most important tactical element: Besides the operators, Rainbow Six Siege is primarily characterized by one thing: Destruction.
Each map in R6S is designed to creatively attack or defend different rooms. That’s why there are numerous walls that you can completely destroy, thus creating new access points or escape routes. The holes you shoot or blow in a wall can even create interesting angles that might surprise one or the other enemy.
These angles arise especially when it is not just a simple wall, but you blow up the ceiling above your opponent or even the floor beneath them, making a once-secure position quickly become a death trap.
Destruction of the map is also usable by both defenders and attackers. Moreover, not only defenders can set up tricky angles, but attackers can also breach the ceiling above a defender holding an important position. Also, blowing up a wall is an effective way for attackers to completely remove an enemy player’s cover.
Holes in walls can be a nightmare in R6S
The destruction of a map using the example of Consulate: If you want to make the attackers’ lives difficult in Rainbow Six: Siege, you create as many angles as possible with the destructibility of the maps that an attacker must concentrate on.
In the following images, you can see a possible tactical setup. For illustration, we took the map Consulate and edited the top floor, where in this case the bombs are also located.
A tactical hole in a wall not only serves as an angle or to throw gadgets that are supposed to prevent defusing the bomb. It is also a new access to a room, in this case to the bomb spot “Meeting & Consul Office”.
Another practical angle on the map Consulate arises when you shoot holes in the walls between the so-called “Yellow Stairs” and the “Consul Office” with your shotgun.
This way, as a defender, you can see when an attacker takes cover behind the desk or wants to place the defuser. You can also see when your opponents enter the office through the window.
But the destruction of ceilings and floors also creates angles in R6S that your opponents must pay attention to. A defender can, for example, look through the hole in the floor of “Meeting” at a door in the room below him. The door leads into the lobby and is an important access point for attackers to enter the building.
However, you should keep in mind that every angle can be used from both sides. Additionally, attentive attackers can conclude from the hole in the ceiling that a defender is sitting there and looking down. The attacker could approach the hole from below in a blind spot and eliminate the defender with a cooked fragmentation grenade through the floor.
If you are now wondering what it looks like from the attacker’s perspective when you blow holes in various walls, we have the answer: It is terrible because you must concentrate on many different angles.
Even if you face this tactical setup as a team, it requires a lot of communication and the use of your gadgets to defuse a bomb there. If there were no holes in the walls, there would only be one angle for attackers to focus on in the Consul Office: the door, at which the visor is also aimed in our picture.
A game that continues to evolve
Why is Rainbow Six: Siege still so good in 2022? What Ubisoft definitely deserves credit for concerning Rainbow Six Siege is that they continuously work on the title. Since the game was released almost 7 years ago, it receives an update every three months with new operators and a new map or at least a rework of a map.
Changes to operators and maps constantly change the game’s meta. This means that now different operators and weapons may be strong than they might have been in 3 or 6 months.
This is also reflected in the regularly held e-sport events, which still excite thousands of spectators. If you want to know what is currently strong in Rainbow Six Siege, you can find a professional match to watch nearly anytime, which can reveal interesting strategies and tricks.
However, not only e-sport events and updates with new operators or maps bring fresh wind into the tactical shooter. Ubisoft also organizes regular in-game events that bring fun modes into the game. These can be played for a limited time. The current event is called “M.U.T.E: Flesh and Metal” and is a kind of gun game. The event runs until August 23, 2022.
Year 7 brings important “Quality of Life” adjustments
But Ubisoft is not just bringing fun modes into the game that are meant to entertain for a short time. Especially in the current seventh year, Rainbow Six Siege received two new additions that the community was very excited about: the long-awaited shooting range to test and train weapons and the deathmatch mode for warming up.
Also, the match replay system, which allows you to watch entire matches from the perspective of each individual player afterward, is something that is also desirable in many other shooters like Valorant or Escape from Tarkov.
Conclusion: A shooter for tactical lovers
Who is Rainbow Six: Siege interesting for?
Rainbow Six Siege is a shooter that primarily targets fans of strategic gameplay. With the combination of the most diverse operators and the destructibility of maps, the tactical shooter offers countless ways to attack or defend a map. Even professionals discover new ways and tactics that suddenly prove to be extremely strong after almost 7 years.
In no other shooter do you have the opportunity to customize the map through pure destruction and the deployment of various gadgets so individually.
However, if you want to play a shooter where you run mindlessly through the map and turn off your enemies, perhaps while listening to music and having relaxed conversations, then Rainbow Six: Siege may not be for you. But if you want to measure yourself strategically against your opponents while having straightforward weapon behavior, then Ubisoft’s tactical shooter is precisely right for you.
Dariusz Müller
Freelance Author at MeinMMO
