In Rainbow Six Siege you can now buy Outbreak Packs. These old event cosmetics from 2018 cause a lot of frustration among players who complain about greed.
This is ‘new’: You can now open ‘Outbreak Packs’ in the team-based tactical shooter Rainbow Six Siege and unlock 50 rare cosmetics. But wait, the Outbreak Packs aren’t that new – they were already available in 2018.
This ‘innovation’ is not well received by many players for two reasons:
- Ubisoft is accused of greed
- Making the rare items available again hurts the veterans who were active in 2018
What is different now? In 2018, the Outbreak Packs were introduced along with a cool zombie mode. Here, players could cooperatively face the undead threat, which felt quite similar to Left4Dead. On top of that, players earned the Outbreak Packs and unlocked event loot – even the rare Elite Skins.
But now, in 2021, there’s no zombie mode. Only the packs with the event items are in the game. If you want the (again) limited-time loot, you’ll have to raid your R6 account this time.
Players find Outbreak Packs “greedy”
That there are cosmetics only this way is not a developer’s mistake. The zombie mode is not supposed to return. It is intended that players get the 50 items from the Outbreak Collection through the shop – randomly. By the way, you only get 1 item per pack. So, if you want everything and didn’t play in 2018, you’ll need 50 packs.
- A single Outbreak Pack costs 300 R6 Credits
- 600 Credits correspond to €4.99.
- Alternatively, an Outbreak Pack can be bought for 12,500 Renown. This corresponds to more than 10 hours of pure gameplay – the amount of Renown depends on your performance.
This is how players react: Primarily, players complain that the developers just want to cash in quickly. The term “Cash Grab” is frequently mentioned under the official announcement tweet from Rainbow Six Siege. The US site Game Rant even titles “Rainbow Six Siege: The Return of the Outbreak Packs Triggers a Controversy in the Community Over ‘Greed'” (via gamerant.com).
The former pro Niclas ‘Pengu’ Mouritzen is one of the best players and hits the nail on the head for many when he says things like: “Wait, so the old skins are back, which can be bought for real money, but without a game mode? The old content loses its value because the skins were so ‘rare’, PLUS it’s just a money grab?”.
What this means is that the cosmetics from 2018 now lose significant rarity. Anyone who ran around with an Elite Skin “Black Viper” for Ash showed they were part of the OG Outbreak event. Now, anyone who runs around with it could just have bought 50 Outbreak Packs.
Would this be the ideal solution? Players are puzzled as to why Rainbow Six Siege does not simply bring back the entire Outbreak mode. The creepy zombies would also fit perfectly to the upcoming Rainbow Six Extraction coming out in September 2021.
The latest installment in the series is a co-op shooter that takes place after a mysterious parasite outbreak. The whole game is supposed to draw on the PvE mode Outbreak from Siege and build on that idea. Our MeinMMO author and Rainbow Six expert Benedict Grothaus demands that the new Rainbow Six: Extraction needs 3 things from Siege to be really good.
What do you think of the return of the Outbreak Packs in R6? Do you hate FOMO – that feeling of missing out – and are you happy that you can now get the event loot from 2018? Or do you agree with the upset players: Zombie items without a zombie mode are a no-go? Let us know in the comments.
