Rainbow Six Siege turns 9 years previous in 2024, however in reside service phrases, it is extra like 90. When Ubisoft’s 5v5 FPS first launched in 2015, Overwatch was nonetheless months away, PUBG did not exist, and Fortnite was a zombie sport we thought would possibly by no means come out. Siege has been doing the reside service sport longer than the time period has been part of our vernacular.
That makes Siege one of many oldest video games commonly receiving content material updates. Ubisoft nonetheless plans to assist Siege by way of Yr 9 and past, however the sport’s many revisions and rising age of its engine has led longtime gamers to ask an inexpensive query as of late: Does Siege want a sequel?
The reply, in response to Siege inventive director Alexander Karpazis, is an emphatic no.
“I can confidently say that we now have most likely top-of-the-line engines on the planet with regards to reside PvP shooters,” Karpazis mentioned in a bunch interview held on the Siege Invitational 2024 in Brazil. “The group is unbelievable, and we now have an enormous engine pipeline group that each single month incrementally improves the way in which that we are able to ship content material sooner, extra strong, extra steady, hopefully as a lot as doable.”
Siege’s engine, Ubisoft Anvil, is a frequent goal of derision when issues come up in-game. As new seasons introduce recent batches of bugs, many gamers prefer to blame previous know-how, characterizing Siege as a creaky previous constructing held collectively by duct tape and stubbornness. The reality is that Siege has been buggy for so long as I’ve performed it, and in my expertise is extra steady now than it was in its early days. Nonetheless, Siege is displaying its age in different methods, like its practical however unremarkable graphics.
To Karpazis, who joined the Siege group in 2018 as presentation director earlier than ascending to the lead function in 2022, the notion that Ubisoft ought to put money into a Siege sequel with a brand new engine is just not solely pointless, however probably a giant mistake.
“The thought of switching engines to one thing that may be off-the-shelf prepared merely would not reply the wants of a extremely aggressive and demanding sport like Siege,” he mentioned. “I am not going to call names, however you see video games that did undergo sequels and simply utterly drop the ball as a result of they need to remake each single factor that they did in that first sport.”
Karpazis compares the follow to dropping your homework after which having to redo it, besides “you may by no means [make it] precisely the identical manner” as the unique.
“It may be actually irritating, actually expensive, and in the long run, it would not even offer you something that was a profit. If you understand what you must start with, and also you construct it up, that’s the place we see success. And that’s the place we all know we are able to take Siege into the long run.”
Whereas an engine swap may deliver a number of apparent enhancements—trendy graphics, for one—Ubisoft hasn’t spent 9 years standing nonetheless. The studio has demonstrated a powerful willingness to enhance or reinvent main facets of Siege.
Switching engines to one thing that may be off-the-shelf prepared merely would not reply the wants of a extremely aggressive and demanding sport like Siege.
Alexander Karpazis
Over 9 years, Ubisoft has overhauled the whole lot from Siege’s gunplay, operators, and maps to its guidelines, modes, and person interface. Siege weapons do not behave in 2024 like they did in 2015. Almost each map that launched with the sport has been changed with reworked layouts that replicate hundreds of thousands of gamers’ value of suggestions. Fashionable Siege has match replay, in-game reporting, 50 extra operators, a sturdy capturing vary, arcade mode, crossplay, cross-progression, an Apex-inspired ping system, a reimagined tutorial, AI bot coaching—options that will’ve been pitched for a sequel in a extra conventional improvement cycle.
Maybe Siege is due for an engine improve, presumably to a more recent model of the Anvil engine that additionally powers trendy Murderer’s Creed video games, however even this comes with potential downsides. Extraction shooter Hunt: Showdown has plans to improve to a more recent model of its CryEngine, and when it does, it will finish assist for 2 platforms.
For some video games, a clear break with new know-how is well worth the sacrifice. I am undecided Siege is a kind of video games. Karpazis positive would not suppose so.
“We actually do know that it is a sport that may final endlessly with the folks and the expertise and the instruments that we now have at the moment.”
