Breach and Clear | Rainbow Six Siege Review

Rainbow Six Siege has managed to take the excitement of a first person shooter and combine it with the tactical gameplay of a Rainbow Six game all wrapped up into one package. On defense, you’ll be tasked with setting up traps, scouting the location and finding the best location to hunker down and prepare for the offensive team. On the contrary, the offense is tasked with breaching the defensive teams compound and clearing each room until they find the objective or clear out the enemy team, whichever comes first. It is often a tense experience and it requires a fair amount of teamwork and communication. Often in a public match, you will not experience either of these things which tends to hurt the overall experience. However, the game itself does a great job of bringing the Rainbow Six experience to the next generation of gaming.

While Rainbow Six Siege has the facade of a first-person shooter, the game takes some liberties with the traditional formula. First, there are no respawns in the game. Once you die, that is it for the rest of the round. This is a vast departure from modern first-person shooters where you can just respawn after a short delay. This style of play forces you to be more strategic and really think about where you set your traps and where you wait for the enemy. Second, there are no health packs or health regeneration. Whatever amount of health you start with is the most health you’ll ever have. If you get shot, you’ll lose health and it stays away. This just further emphasizes the fact that you need to be strategic and make your decisions carefully. Finally, teams are kept to five players at most. With smaller teams, you’ll have to work together more and the lone wolf mentality is severely penalized.

This style of first-person shooter is something that we haven’t seen in a while. Most shooters today emphasize and reward players that excel at twitch mechanics and relying on high-risk, high-reward strategies. We often found ourselves dying a lot at first for this very reason. Gamers are not used to this kind of first-person shooter and it will take some practice to overcome the twitch, run-and-gun approach. While this approach changes the formula for the game, it will certainly polarize the fan base for this style of game. On one hand you’ll have those that can’t adapt or have no interest in finding a new style to play in. On the other, you’ll have those that will enjoy a slower and more methodical approach to the game. No matter which side you fall on, it is good to get some variety into a genre that has seen its fair share of similar titles.

In addition to the difference of style, the ability to breach almost any wall, ceiling or floor adds a new dimension to the gameplay. As long as you can walk up to a surface, chances are, it is destructible. While breaking down barriers is lots of fun in its own right, it adds another element of strategy to the game. You can literally approach your enemy from any angle, so it just makes the attacking strategy that much more unpredictable and the defense of those strategies even harder to execute. Luckily, each side has their own abilities which make attacking or defending certain strategies easier. For example, you’ll eventually unlock a metal barrier that will prevent that section of wall from being destroyed easily. This limits the attackers vectors towards the prize. While it seems on the surface that being the attacker gives you a straight advantage, these perks and items level the playing field quite a bit.

While the game is great under most circumstances, the major blow against the game is the lack of a single player campaign. We feel that with the mechanics presented, there could have been a riveting story attached to it, making for an exciting and worth-while experience. Instead, you are given a simulation mode which will present you with a number of objectives to complete as you are given a task to complete. This mostly revolves around taking down targets and saving hostages, but the mode as a whole is more of a primer than a full-on single-player campaign. It really feels like this could have been an amazing single player game, but instead, it is just a missed opportunity.

This game is thoroughly a multiplayer experience, but luckily the game does a great job there. There are several different modes which give players just enough material to keep happy with the game. There are also over 10 maps to play on with 20 available characters to choose from. Each map is unique and has its own strategy with several distinct strengths and weaknesses. In addition, the game objectives are randomly placed in the map, so even when you think you know where everything is, the next time you play the map, the game will be entirely different. Rainbow Six Siege does a great job at mixing things up and keeping players engaged without being bored.

Finally, we had some issues with the progression system in Siege. It feels like the levels, and the perks with those associated levels, are spaced too far apart. It takes several matches to level up or earn a new perk. Obviously, the further you progress, the harder it is to level, but each level is spaced out too far and just makes the problem worse. Ranked play doesn’t unlock until level 20 and getting up that high can take you a very long time. It is a shame that the levels are set up the way they are since it doesn’t offer you enough content to make your time with the game feel meaningful in small bunches. Only until you spend several hours with the game do things start to feel like you are moving forward, and that kind of grind is not for everyone.

In conclusion, Rainbow Six Siege is a great multiplayer experience, especially for those that are fans of Rainbow Six. The first person mechanics are tight and the strategic angle of the game is interesting and unique in a crowded market. The game is held back a bit by its lack of a single player experience and its overly slow progression system. However, despite its flaws, this is still a very solid experience and fell just short of being one of the best shooters of the year. We definitely enjoyed our time with the game, and if something like this will interest you, you should definitely pick it up and try it out. You may be surprised at how much different this game is then your standard modern-day shooter.

This review is based on a review copy of the PlayStation 4 version of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege published by Ubisoft.