"Barricade going up!" my character shouts as I board up a doorway. "Reinforced wall going up!" he shouts once again, as I reinforce a wall with a metal sheet to make it nigh impregnable. I place my barbed wire in front of the doorway.
So far, so good. Everything's going to plan. The trap is set. Now all that's left to do is wait for the enemy to spring it. I post up behind cover, leaning from behind a piece of furniture, waiting for an unsuspecting attacker to attempt to breach my defenses. My team is doing the same.
Then something unexpected happens: the enemy comes from above. In a violent explosion, a massive hole in the roof appears, as bullets whiz overhead. One teammate down. Another. I sprint down the hallway to escape the massacre. Being sure to check my corners, I see an enemy on my left as I exit the room. One well-placed headshot eliminates the threat.
I make my way to a more easily defended position. It's here I'll make my last stand. I toss a piece of C4 near the doorway, ready to take out the next person who tries to enter. I wait for what seems like an eternity, but it's only been 30 seconds before I'm discovered. My C4 goes off, taking out one enemy, but a hail of bullets comes through the wall. I hit the ground and try to find some cover.
But it's too late. I'm wounded and bleeding out. Nobody on my team is left to save me as a member of the enemy team walks up to me and puts me out of my misery with a single bullet to the head.
This is what it's like to play Rainbow Six Siege. Unlike more twitch-based shooters, like Halo or Call of Duty, Rainbow Six Siege plays out more like an intense real-time strategy game than your typical first-person shooter. It's that aspect that has me hooked, playing round after round.
I wasn't really expecting to enjoy Ubisoft's latest entry in the franchise. When it was first announced to be a multiplayer-only shooter in the wake of the canceled narrative-driven Rainbow Six Patriots, I was more than a little disappointed. I loved Rainbow Six Vegas 1 and 2 for both their single-player and multiplayer, so to learn that one half of the equation was being cut out didn't make me happy.
Then I played the beta, and found it to be slow-paced, mired by technical difficulties and unimpressive overall.
Initial response to the game was solid but not great among critics. It boasts a 73 average Metacritic score on PlayStation 4, substantially lower than other recent shooters like Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and Halo 5: Guardians.
All signs pointed toward me skipping Rainbow Six Siege. But then I gave the game a real chance, and what I found was a game that is far more impressive than I was initially led to believe, one revolving around teamwork and tactics that truly makes it unlike any other shooter on the market.
Now I'm addicted to it. After barely playing in the weeks since the game's launch, I've managed to purchase almost all the game's operators in the last few weeks. I've been trying to figure out what exactly hooks me about this multiplayer-only shooter, and what I've found is that Rainbow Six Siege's core gameplay loop is primarily to blame.
It all has to do with how the game is set up: one life per round, alternating between Attack and Defend. On defense, you and your team have to fortify an area and wait for the enemy team. It means putting up barricades, laying down traps and trying to predict where the enemy team will attack from. "Predict" is the key word here. The setup phase of each round is a game in and of itself. It's a duel of the minds with the enemy team. You are constantly trying to analyze where enemies may come from, trying to gauge the other team's past routes and determine the experience of other players to calculate whether or not they may make a rookie mistake.
Oftentimes your predictions about the enemy team are terribly, terribly wrong (take the opening scenario above, for example), but when your predictions are right, when you set up in the perfect spot for an ambush, when the enemy team plays right into your hands and you pick them off like flies one by one, Rainbow Six Siege is more fulfilling than any other shooter I've played in recent memory.
The same goes for when your team is on offense. When attacking, it's all about playing it safe. Checking every corner. Using your surveillance drone to scout ahead. When your team finds where the enemy is holed up, it's time for a coordinated assault. When multiple teammates breach from different points all at the same time, it truly feels like you are an elite operator. It's these moments, when your team is working like a well-oiled machine, that Rainbow Six Siege shines.
While on the subject of teamwork, I can't recall the last time I actually talked to other humans who weren't my immediate friends in a multiplayer shooter. With the invention of parties, the vast majority of players now never step outside their friend zone to interact with strangers in online multiplayer. However, Rainbow Six Siege doesn't just encourage talking to other players, it almost requires it.
Talking to your team to relay enemy positions and plan strategies is crucial to success, and what I've found so far is that the vast majority of people playing online are both courteous and competent. Sure, you won't always win, but I haven't had a game where teammates resorted to name-calling or bashing another player's skill. The community is genuinely helpful, and that's because in a game where you only have one life per round, making sure to each player knows what they are doing is key to coming out on top.
Much can be said for the game's cast of playable characters as well. Each operator brings unique weapons and abilities to the table, and the ways they interact with one another add a huge level of depth. Castle may be able to put up extra-powerful barricades, but Thermite can breach them. Twitch may be able to send out a shock drone, but Mute can stop electronics dead in their tracks. Even from the character select screen there are decisions to be made that will have a huge impact on the upcoming round.
This all culminates to form a shooter that isn't like anything else out there. It's a thinking man's game, one where battles can be won before ever having to pull the trigger. That's why I can't stop thinking about it. After each match, my mind goes straight toward planning for the next one. I learn from each mistake, and with each round become a more tactical and experienced player. I'm constantly wanting to try new strategies and test both reflexes and my wits against the other team.
Rainbow Six Siege may not have wowed critics, but it's a far better game than you've been led to believe. It's different, it's competitive and it's tactical in a way that no Rainbow Six game has been before. Ubisoft is to be commended for trying something truly different with one of its flagship franchises. With its pledge to support Rainbow Six Siege with free maps and new operators that can be purchased with in-game currency for months to come, it's more than worth checking out. Rainbow Six Siege is unlike any other shooter out there, and that's what has me coming back for more night after night.
