Ubisoft is reportedly planning a new installment of its most successful game, according to an insider report. Rainbow Six Siege is set to receive a completely new gameplay perspective.
Which game is it? The financially most successful game of Ubisoft is the tactical shooter Rainbow Six: Siege. This was revealed in a financial report on October 30, 2024.
It was stated that the company has earned over 3.5 billion euros with Rainbow Six Siege since its release in December 2015. This made the shooter almost as much as the entire Assassin’s Creed series, which at that time had earned Ubisoft 4 billion euros.
Game series such as Far Cry (2 billion €), Ghost Recon, and The Division (both 1 billion €) lag behind Rainbow Six: Siege, even though they released several new games during that period.
New game for Rainbow Six with a new perspective
What kind of idea is it to earn even more money? As the well-connected industry insider Tom Henderson reports on his website Insider-Gaming, Ubisoft is currently developing a new game in the Universe of Rainbow Six, which could be released in one to two years.
The new game is supposed to be a turn-based strategy game from a top-down perspective. This means you look at the played character from above. According to Henderson, various operators from Rainbow Six: Siege will be available to you as playable characters. The gameplay loop is also said to resemble that of the tactical shooter. Players would choose operators with different abilities to storm buildings and complete objectives such as rescuing a hostage.
A source compared the game to the popular strategy game XCOM to Henderson. The insider quotes: “Just look at some XCOM games if you want to get a picture. I would say it’s an updated version of that, with cinematic cutscenes and so on.”
The new game is being developed for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC and may also be released for the Nintendo Switch 2, for which Nintendo recently revealed the release date.
Has Ubisoft ever attempted such a spin-off before? The upcoming game for Rainbow Six is already the second attempt to leverage the success of Rainbow Six: Siege for a new game. In January 2022, they released the PvE shooter Rainbow Six: Extraction, which never really resonated well with players. In the meantime, the shooter is stagnating. The last major announcement regarding the game was the roadmap for the year 2023 (via ubisoft.com).
According to various industry experts and insiders, Ubisoft has been in a financial crisis for some time. A new game for Rainbow Six: Siege is likely to provide relief.
The tactical shooter is also part of the newly formed partnership between Ubisoft and the Chinese mega-corporation Tencent, which both companies first announced on March 27. They are establishing a subsidiary responsible for the development of Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six. Tencent invested around 1.16 billion US dollars for a 25 percent stake: Ubisoft is now collaborating with Tencent, selling shares in 3 important game series for 1 billion euros.
