Ubisoft on adjusting Rainbow Six: Siege X's characters for Dual Front: "Some of them need drastic changes"

With Rainbow Six: Siege X making its grand arrival next week, on June 10, one of the major additions to the game that many will be familiar with is the new mode Dual Front. This is a 6v6 alternative that trades the typical Attacker versus Defender format for a new style where two teams compete in a tug-of-war-like activity that isn't split into defined rounds. Essentially, now you can use a Defender Operator to go on the offensive, and vice-versa with Attackers, but surely that meant some work behind-the-scenes to ensure these characters could play more versatile roles?

This is precisely the question I posed to creative director Alexander Karpazis, where I was told the following in the interview below (which has localised subtitles):

"Oh, not even a little... They needed... Some of them need drastic changes, and that's why they're not in the first release of Dual Front.

"We have a roster of 35 operators that you can choose from, and we love the new play that you get when you take an Attacker and put them in a Defender situation, or a Defender and put them in an Attacker situation. That's what really makes it feel still Siege, but really fresh. New strategies that you're pairing up with other operators that you never thought you could before.

"But we have some operators that do need changes, especially the ones that have global abilities. You have your Lion and your Dokkaebi. They just don't work on a 6v6 map that's that scale. So we're taking a little extra time to tune them.

"Dual Front also sees a little bit of adjustment with the rate of how often you can use your gadget or your abilities. So we did have to make some smaller balancing changes. And there are some that will need even bigger ones in the future. But they're coming."

Building on this, I also asked Karpazis if Dual Front's arrival will affect how Operators are fundamentally designed in the future. His response will definitely please long-time and core Siege fans.

"To be 100% honest, we didn't want to put that kind of responsibility on the team making new operators. First of all, they have a very complex job right now introducing a new operator that is exciting, fun to play and works with every other operator in our core 5v5 game mode.

"Having said that, we do want to try to introduce the new operator into Dual Front as soon as possible. And so we'll be pushing for that. It's an added level of complexity for the team, but they've actually risen to the challenge really well."

Stay tuned for our full thoughts on Rainbow Six: Siege X, in-line with its launch next week.