Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six has been one of those ‘maybe franchises’; it has some great aspects to their instalments but never really gripped players in a way where it had a leading game such as Battlefield or Call of Duty. Rainbow Six Vegas, both the first and second, were very enjoyable but once you played the campaign you never really wanted to come back and do it again all to often. It was all very safe from Ubisoft, nothing ever stretched the boundaries and tested something new. So it’s safe to say Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege certainly tears up the script.
For those that have missed any news or previews of what Rainbow Six Siege is all about here is a little taste. The game centrals around the idea of teamwork and working as either defenders or attackers in a style of King of the Hill, where there is one bomb with the idea of protecting and detonating or breaching and disarming. In this beta we get our first look and flavour of how this concept works and plays on the Xbox One.
So what are we actually getting to test, we have two online game modes for players to feast their peepers on. An old favourite is not forgotten in the form of Terrorist hunt, which sees a team of 5 soldiers via multiplayer take on 24 AI terrorists, just as you remember it, but with a lot more toys which I will come onto later. The mode is pretty untouched and plays exactly as you remember it, as fun as ever.
The other mode is siege. Siege is brand new, from the ground up, it seems like what terrorist hunt would look like if it upgraded itself. Communication is key here really, its only beta but already you get a sense that this game doesn’t really have the legs if you are on your own. Don’t get me wrong though, Siege is great fun from start when you are scouting the area with a remote control camera on wheels to when you C4 the door open and fight your way through the houses.
Its biggest plus is its amount of toys and weapons that at your disposal and the mechanics that go with it. The game is very smooth at a very good and fast pace without many issues especially for a beta. The sights and sounds are a real plus for Siege at this stage, and if you have been enjoying this beta you will probably take a good look at the game, however the only thing that will hold you back is the fact you need 3 or 4 people playing at once to get the most out of Siege.
It simply is just too much of a reach, it doesn’t mean that this is not a good game or a bad game, the concept is sound but it is too much of a niche for Rainbow Six Siege to really take off and be ultimately successful. Yet a great time will be had by those who have enough people in a squad to get knee deep into it. The gameplay seems smoother than ever and the old traits that previous instalments have had are not forgotten but cleaned, polished and brought forward to the next generation. As betas go it’s something you have to try if you can but when buying the full game the features for single player and maybe co-op will almost certainly decide how successful it will be.
With thanks to XCN and Microsoft for allowing AbsoluteGaming access to the Rainbow Six: Siege Beta.