Ubisoft’sRainbow Six Siegehas remained one of the best tactical shooters available for nearly a full decade, but with the game’s age comes a significant challenge in keeping it relevant for the years ahead. That’s whereRainbow Six Siege Xcomes in, a major overhaul to the game that is designed to “future-proof"Siegeby ensuring it continues to change and evolve alongside the gaming landscape it currently thrives on.
Game Rant recently attended theRainbow Six Siege Xshowcasein Atlanta, Georgia, where we spent some quality time with the new Dual Front game mode and the visual, audio, and technical changes delivered in its modernized maps. During the preview, we also sat down with game director Joshua Mills and inquired about howRainbow Six Siege Xfits into the context ofSiege’s future, to which he had a thorough and enthusiastic response.
Rainbow Six Siege X Is the First Step Toward a Big Future
Rainbow Six Siege Xis bringing big changes, making it more than just a routine update. In reality, it could be considered a fundamental rework of the game’s technical backbone, where Ubisoft isn’t just tweaking mechanics or adding a bit of new content. Instead, the developer is essentially reengineeringSiegeto ensure it can remain relevant, even to the point of opening the door wider to newcomers. When asked about what inspired the development ofSiege X, Mills replied,
“Siege Xcomes down to the idea of setting up the foundation for the next 10 years, and that’s really what it is. We wanted to do a big update, to go in and do core changes to our engine — that’s why the lighting’s rebuilt — and to be able to set ourselves up in kind of like future-proofing to a certain degree for where we’re going to go.”
So, Ubisoft isn’t just wanting to ensureRainbow Six Siegegets enough attention to get it through another couple of years — it’s aiming for another decade. To accomplish this, the focus isn’t just onperformance and visual enhancementsbut on refining the game’s structure to allow for more flexibility in future updates and new features. By overhauling the engine andRainbow Six Siege’s core systems,Siege Xpaves the way for more complex content drops, better management of playlists, and gameplay enhancements that aim to entice newcomers and continuously surprise veterans. On that note, Mills added,
“We’ll be updating our different playlists and stuff like this again to serve our community but also open up all the different channels on how we can actually deliver content. Ultimately, being able to do that sort of stuff opens up the next step of expanding the core ofSiegewith these destructible ingredients.”
Destructible ingredients (aside from perhaps weapon inspect) may very well be one of the biggest additions coming toRainbow Six Siegewith thelaunch ofSiege X, but Ubisoft is treating it more like a concept than a one-time design choice. Currently, there are three destructible ingredients arriving with the launch ofSiege X— fire extinguishers, gas pipes, and metal detectors — but only having those three present in the game for the next ten years might get a bit too predictable and underwhelming after a while. As such, Ubisoft is ensuring that everything inRainbow Six Siege Xis treated more as the forerunner for something greater, with the potential for the game to continue to receive more ideas of these types as they come. Mills continued,
“I’ll use those destructible ingredients as the kind of base for this, where when you play any game and when you playSiege, the question comes up of “What can I do?” And the game has a lot of possibilities with like destructible walls, all the gadgets inRainbow Six Siege, all the different interactions. But then the fact that I can shoot that fire extinguisher, set up a different flank, set up a different push, and I can do different interactions like this, the question then is like, “Well, what can I not do?” And then how do we enable that in the future and continue to go down that path?
In short, by focusing more on structural changes than minor, simple, fun additions, Ubisoft is really just usingRainbow Six Siege Xas a framework for the game that can help it grow and adapt alongside player expectations.Siege X, then, isn’t just about enhancing what already works but about expanding the definition of what’s possible inRainbow SixSiege. As such,Siege Xsounds like the start of a new erafor the game — one that not only preserves it in the state it is already in but also ensures it remains one of the best tactical shooters for the indefinite future.
