Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6 Siege is the latest in the Rainbow 6 series of squad-based tactical first person shooter games based on the Tom Clancy books. Siege is the 17th game in the series, which was started in 1998 with Tom Clancy’s Rainbow six. The series is highly respected in the genre for it’s focus on teamwork and communication.
Rainbow 6 Siege has very little story, choosing instead to focus on player-versus-player matches pitting ten players against each other in two teams of five. One team is designated as the defenders and their objective is to protect either a building, room, or hostage depending on the gamemode. The other team is the attackers and their goal is to secure the room, building, or hostage (again depending on gamemode).
The defenders spawn into the map immediately and have 45 seconds to fortify their position and prepare for the siege. During those 45 second,s the attackers, while not spawned in, may survey the defenders building via small remote control drones equipped with cameras in an attempt to get recover information on the defender’s fortifications. The defenders can shoot the attackers drones; however, this means they have less time to fortify.
Rainbow 6 Siege has a hero-based class system. This means that both teams have access to a unique roster of playable classes known as operators, each with a specific team-based ability, gadget, or weapon. Currently there are 46 different operators in the game with 2 new ones being released every couple of months.The developers have stated that they plan to add as many as 150 different operators. Operators can be divided into four basic, different categories: anchor, roamer, rush, and assault. Anchors are defenders that specialize in deploying their ability or gadget once during the match and sitting still on the objective as a last line of defense. Roamers are defenders that have abilities or gadgets that can be activated multiple times or even continuously. They roam around the area surrounding the objective and attempt to flank attackers. Rush operators are attackers that specialize in getting to the objective as fast as possible and attempting to surprise and overwhelm the defenders often with the help of a gadget. Assault operators are slightly less aggressive Rush operators; their gadgets are usually info gathering in nature.
The maps in Rainbow 6 siege are visually exquisite and, to add icing to the cake, almost entirely destructible. Being destructible means things like breaching charges, claymores, frag grenades, and C4 actually have an effect on the environment unlike most games where and explosion deals damage only to the player not the environment. There currently 22 maps with more arriving every year.
The game has a very steep learning curve’ especially if you are not familiar with highly competitive team-based shooters, but the payoff is very well worth it. Once you acquire some basic knowledge of the maps layout, as well as most of the operators abilities, the game gets much easier. Winning a match feels satisfying and hard earned.I wholeheartedly recommend Rainbow 6 Siege to both casual and dedicated gamers alike. Newcomers to gaming be careful this game is not for the faint of heart; it is a struggle to master even for those who have been gaming for years.