Rainbow Six: Siege X Preview: Ubisoft's Siege evolution is familiar but welcome

While it may only seem natural to update a game that is several years old with a fresher and more modern alternative, the inaugural wave of successful live-service games have proven that this isn't always a seamless and straightforward process. It took Destiny 2 years to get back to a state that Destiny 1 fans were happy with, Smite 2 has really struggled to entice fans to leave behind the original, and you could argue that despite the player numbers, Overwatch 2 has never been as popular as Overwatch was at its height, and now Ubisoft and Rainbow Six: Siege are facing the same dilemma. This year, Siege will be celebrating its 10th year in operation - and while that will include the typical additions of new seasons, maps, Operators, and such - it will also see the arrival of a brand new Siege experience, a sequel that Ubisoft clearly doesn't want to label as the big Siege 2.

It's known as Rainbow Six: Siege X. While that naming convention might make a few of you assume it's some kind of quirky spinoff or perhaps even a lite version, in practice it's none of those things. This is the Siege 2 that Ubisoft doesn't want you to think of as Siege 2, and that has both a variety of exciting elements but also a few worries.

Before I get into the changes, let me just make it fundamentally clear again that Siege X is Rainbow Six: Siege. The tactical shooter gameplay, which is pretty much still the gold standard for this portion of the genre, remains in effect here. You have objectives to capture or defend, various defensive and offensive tools and weapons to use to get the job done, movement and destructive physics that enable you to approach a task in a multitude of ways, and a tight gunplay system that can be challenging and demanding but when you master it feels second-to-none. Siege X has all of that, except it is cranking up the Siege experience in the ways that all sequels tend to do.

Whether it's improved and better graphics, flashier effects, greater environmental destruction, more customisation options, improved menus, tighter performance, added mechanics that the original still seems to lack... Siege X has all of this and then some. The 2015 game has looked and felt old for years now, and this title - while not a beauty by any stretch of the imagination - is a clear step up on the predecessor. But here's the thing, very few people come to Siege for a striking gameplay experience. If you want that, there are a plethora of RPGs and single-player action-adventures to choose from. If you want thrilling and competitive multiplayer warfare, Siege is the ticket.

Siege X takes this theme a step further by ramping up everything on this front to the max, meaning you can now destroy gas pipes to leave a trail of fire and destruction on the map, or pop a fire extinguisher to create a disorientating cloud effect. You can sprint while rappelling and even rappel around corners finally, instead of having to manually dismount and restart the process... Audio has been improved so that it's easier to locate enemies by solely sound and you now can see your shadow while in first-person to see whether it's betraying your hiding spot. It may sound trivial but these are all things that a multiplayer game launched in the first half of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4's life cycle tend to lack.

But again, while there are a lot of promising little features that will make Siege players around the world drool, Ubisoft seems to understand that the current formula is absolutely fantastic as it is, which is why in Siege X the user interface remains very similar, near exactly the same to be honest, and the characters all do the same things that we have known them to do for years. There's no "new perk system" or "artefacts" that change how they play. Ubisoft is keeping the Siege format as pure as it can, all while making the many necessary changes that this multiplayer shooter needed to make it feel relevant in the mid-to-late 2020s.

Before I move onto how players can expect to move from Siege to Siege X, let me just divert your attention to the one really big addition in this follow-up: Dual Front. This is a new game mode exclusive to Siege X. It pits two teams of six (yep, six not five) against one another in an almost evolving battle format. Each team is handed the same objectives to complete, but mirrored, meaning you both have points to attack and defend. The way Dual Front unfolds is that it's a tug-of-war race in many aspects, so the first team to capture the necessary points will win. You might think that full-blown aggression and attack is the solution here, overwhelming the enemy's objective and gunning for the win, but a solid defensive effort could buy you vital minutes that enable you to design more structured assaults and not gung-ho attacks that leave a trail of corpses. And yep, I said a "trail or corpses" because in Dual Front there is respawning. When you die, you have to wait around 30 seconds but then you can return to the action, even swapping Operators on the fly if required, which is what makes this a much more forgiving mode all while preserving the signature Siege challenge and complexity.

There are sometimes added objectives here too, like extracting a hostage, but the win condition remains the same: working through the map and opening and capturing the enemy's most vital defensive point. It's a mode that while I personally don't think it quite has the same magic as traditional and ruthless Siege, I do see the potential it holds, especially for engaging a wider player base that is looking for something in between the very casual team deathmatch options and the sweatier ranked ladder. For that reason, Dual Front will have a future in Siege X and I'm excited to see how Ubisoft continues to expand on it.

So anyway, how is Ubisoft approaching transferring players from Siege to Siege X? The process is actually very straightforward, if you have a copy of Siege, you will be able to access the entirety of Siege X on that respective platform too. All of your unlocked Operators will transfer across, as will your progress, skins, and access to Ranked and the competitive modes. If that isn't you, the good news is that Siege X will be partly free-to-play. A portion of the game will be accessible to all, but if you want the unfettered Siege X experience, you will need to pay for the full title. Essentially, this is Ubisoft's way of maintaining its existing player base but also making Siege X seem like the perfect jumping on point for new fans, something that is being enhanced by an improved and adjusted onboarding system designed to more effectively teach the ins and outs and dos and don'ts of this game.

Otherwise, Siege X will still retain a similar live-service structure. Ubisoft promises that for the first year this will revolve around adding a few new goodies, but mostly surround transferring existing content to this new version. With that in mind, we can look forward to three "modernised" maps a month, as well as either a returning or a new Operator being added every month too, all on top of the typical battle passes, events, and other live elements we see commonly in all GaaS titles. As per the "modernised" maps that will be present at debut, we can expect Clubhouse, Chalet, Bank, Kafe, and Border to be included, with each featuring new parts and upgraded and updated elements too.

But again, the key thing to note here isn't whether Ubisoft's plans make sense and are coherent, because from the outside and the brief portion I was able to go hands-on with, it's abundantly clear this will be the case. The key part is whether this evolution from Siege to Siege X happens smoothly and with limited technical issues. Fans have to see this game as a positive step forward for the Siege franchise, as if it struggles with that at debut, it will face an immense uphill battle to get people back on its side down the line. History is one of the greatest teachers, and all we have to do is point fingers back to Overwatch 2 and Destiny 2, and other sequels to show how precarious of a situation this kind of evolution is, so while I came away from my time with Siege X generally impressed and interested in seeing what the future holds for the game, the jury of fans is ultimately the only thing that matters for these kinds of games.