Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege Review

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege isn’t for casual gamers.

Sure, it’s a fun game, but it also requires a high level of creative strategy with a major emphasis on teamwork and specialist play. Frankly, it’s intimidating for someone who isn’t quite up to the challenge.

Thank goodness for tutorial modes.

Gameplay

Part-FPS, part-chess match and part-all-out guns ’n’ guts, the gist of this game involves match-based play that pits a team of attackers against a team of defensive agents. The objective is simple: The attackers have planted a bomb, and the other team has to defuse it or kill all enemy team members before the bomb goes off. The teams then switch sides for a best-of-five competitive series. The mode isn’t exactly novel, as games such as CounterStrike have been doing this for a decade.

Operators

But, in Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, instead of starting with a team of typical FPS characters with no tactical or strategic benefits, there are currently 46 special characters called Operators. Players can adorn each Operator with the guns and equipment of their choosing, and each Operator also has a few unique abilities that can help them in the challenge.

When acting as a defender, players can choose from a defensive tactician such as Echo, whose drone can provide intel to the opposing team’s whereabouts. When playing as attackers, players can choose offensive specialists such as Hibana, who fires explosive rounds that burn through metal. Players can cycle through Operators, playing as different ones throughout the matches as they adapt to their enemies’ play styles.

The majority of the Operators in this game are unlockable characters, meaning players new to Rainbow Six Siege have a limited selection. Unless you’re a day one player, you’ll find that the challenge of unlocking new operators is limited to microtransactions or grindy, hardcore gameplay. Not that that’s impossible — this game has a ranked mode precisely because of its niche, dedicated fanbase — but it’s certainly an investment, one you won’t earn in a few hours of gameplay, no matter how versed you are in the FPS genre. There are so many operators to choose from that it’s a tactical advantage to know all of their strengths and weaknesses inside and out. And, it takes a while to figure all of this out.