Explosive online tactical shooter
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege by Ubisoft is an online 1st-person tactical shooting game, emphasizing teamwork and highly destructible environments with two opposing teams fighting each other. Unlike recent popular games, which only have the last man or last team standing battle royale like Fortnite, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege has a wide range of game modes, each with a specific objective, including a defending team and an attacking team.
Even though Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege was released in 2015, it enjoys continued popularity and constant updates from Ubisoft, including new characters, gadgets, weapons, levels, and game modes. In December 2020, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege registered over 70 million players across all gaming platforms.
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege gameplay
There are over 50 unique operators (characters) to choose from, each with its own weapons and gadgets, which are vital to the team's success. There are gadgets to track enemy movements, destroy walls to open new firing opportunities, and devices to breach doors, ceilings, and floors to create instant entry points on unsuspecting enemies.
Before every round, players on each team must choose an operator, attachments for their guns (that can't be changed mid-round), and a spawn point. Due to the large variety of tools, it's not possible to always balance teams.
Cosmetic items and more operators can be purchased using an in-game currency called ‘Renown’, which is rewarded at the end of the round based on the player's performance. There are also in-game challenges players can complete to earn more Renown and the option to purchase 'boosters' to increase the earning rate.
Players on the attacking team can choose from multiple spawn points to start their offensive while defending players will do everything they can to stop them. Before the game commences, there's a one-minute preparation round where attackers can scout the map to search for traps, enemy players, and fortifications. At the same time, the defenders build their defenses.
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege features close-quarters combat with fast-paced action taking place in tight spaces like narrow corridors and barricaded doorways. The environment is highly destructible, and players can use different kinds of tools like explosives to gain a tactical advantage by destroying cover or shooting through walls and floors to create new vertical entrances.
Teams that use the environment creatively and to their advantage will have better chances of winning - in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege, strategy usually overcomes luck.
Teamwork and strategy are vital as dead players can't respawn, and health amounts aren't very high. Although after dying, players can still help by taking control of drone cameras and security cameras in ‘Support Mode’.
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege game modes
There are several PVE and PVP game modes and levels, with more added each year. Here are all the current game modes in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege:
- Bomb: Attackers must locate and defuse one of the two bombs placed on the map. Defenders can achieve victory by eliminating all the attackers or taking out the diffusing device.
- Hostage: Attackers must locate and extract the hostages while the defenders must stop them by either eliminating all enemy players or preventing them from extracting the hostages until the timer runs out.
- Secure Area: The attackers must locate and secure a biohazard container protected by the defending team. The round ends when all players from a team are eliminated or the attackers secure the room with the container.
- Training grounds: A PVE round where you fight against waves of AI-controlled players in various game modes.
- Situations: A single-player mode that's essentially an interactive tutorial.
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege system requirements
These are the minimum system requirements you'll need to run Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege on your Windows computer:
- Operating system: 64-bit version of Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10
- Processor: Intel Core i3 560 @ 3.3 GHz or AMD Phenom II X4 945 @ 3.0 GHz
- Ram: 6 GB
- Graphics card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 or AMD Radeon HD5770 (1024 MB VRAM)
- Hard drive: 85.5 GB
- DirectX: 11
Our take
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege focuses on teamwork and strategy over aggression and luck with lots of unique operators, guns, and gadgets to choose from. The destructible environment adds to the depth of the game and increases its replay value.
Should you download it?
If you enjoy playing games that require teamwork and communication, download and try Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege.
