Ubisoft is taking its highly beloved tactical shooter Rainbow Six Siege to handheld iOS and Android devices that will utilize a similar format to its base experience. Announced on Tuesday, April 5th, via the Ubisoft blog, Rainbow Six Mobile will meld the same old formula of attackers-versus-defenders and optimize it for the mobile form factor.
The game will feature intense 5v5 matches on fan-favorite arenas, such as Bank and Border. Familiar game modes will also be included in the experience, such as Secure Area and Bomb. Operators, too, will be making a fated comeback, with all the same specialties and skills inherent in the Siege experience.
As of yet, Ubisoft has not allotted an official release date for the mobile title but is incredibly enthusiastic for fans to get a taste of the finished product. It's not intended to act as an alleviator of its console or PC iterations, instead builds upon them and give a more burst effect to the overall premise. In Ubisoft Montreal's own words, Rainbow Six Mobile allows gamers to "play the game you love in short, accessible bursts, while also enabling millions of new players to get the R6 experience."
Despite its surface-level similarities, Rainbow Six Mobile won't be a direct copy of its predecessor. Ubisoft Montreal sought to engineer an experience that works in tandem with its new form factor, built with touch screens in mind. It also will have optimized "Operator unlock and progression systems," explains Creative Director Justin Swan in the press release, with Operator demos that won't require any purchase at all.
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The mobile Rainbow Six experience will be free-to-play, with most of its internal financial incentives being primarily focused on cosmetic items, much akin to Fortnite. Much of the overall aesthetic has been modified to fit more cleanly to the handheld rendition, like streamlined UI features and optimized maps, including even "an entirely new gameplay control system developed specifically for mobile," the developers explain.
So far, a total of ten varied in-game Operators have been announced for Rainbow Six Mobile, including the likes of Sledge, Thermite, Ash, Mute, Caveira, Valkyrie, Hibana, Smoke, and Bandit. Swan explains that these aforementioned operators were chosen specifically for this experience for two primary reasons: "which Operators create the most interesting meta," and the second based upon "which Operators are the most popular."
Despite debuting all the way initially back in 2015, Rainbow Six Siege has still maintained among the most hardcore fanbases, amplified most prominently by its major esports standing. As of writing, the game still carries a weighty average daily player count of about 45,000 gamers on Steam alone, proving that it still holds strong even to this day.
While its most recent release, Rainbow Six Extraction, didn't exactly meet the same fanfare as Siege, there's no doubt that Mobile will be a well-attuned recreation of the 2015 classic. The only thing necessary is for Ubisoft to steer clear of pesky microtransactions outside the realm of cosmetics. Swan adamantly calls the upcoming mobile title a "play-to-get-it type of thing" regarding overall player progression, so it sounds like it'll lean in the right direction.
Rainbow Six Mobile players will also be privy to shared connective accounts through the Ubisoft Connect login on devices. The only difference, though, is that existing R6 credits won't be able to be transferred over to the mobile iteration, given the vast differences in both games' economies. Still, what made Siege so glorious was its ample esports integration, which Mobile may be sorely lacking, yet may make up for it with the potential of literal Siege mobility - playing on the go.
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