Rainbow Six Siege X Early Impressions – Another Decade of R6S?

Rainbow Six Siege is one of the best competitive FPS games ever. Not only did they have a successful esports scene, but they also had an amazing community.

Players don’t know how hard it was for Rainbow Six Siege to tap into the competitive FPS scene, especially when you consider the game was not free-to-play. With all the ups and downs over the years, Rainbow Six Siege announced “Siege X,” which is their biggest update to the game yet.

Rainbow Six Siege X’s Dual Front Mode Needs More Polishing

One of Rainbow Six Siege X’s newest game modes is its Dual Front mode. Dual Front features a 6v6 competitive match with three capture points for each team. Each team must defend and capture points while also trying to finish secondary objectives, like rescuing hostages.

In Dual Front mode, players also respawn after 30 seconds, making it a fast-paced game mode. Players can quickly get into the game mode, choose an operator, and fight for objectives while learning the ropes.

It is perfect for casual players to get into Rainbow Six Siege’s gameplay mechanics, but the core Siege gameplay is still different. Players will have to learn a slightly bigger map and see how each operator’s skills fit into the game mode.

Operators like Mute, Frost, and Bandit might see less play since the game mode isn’t strategically just one round; their traps or gadgets won’t be as useful or destroyed most of the time.

Jackal, Sledge, and Finka will see more play since their gadgets are endlessly useful in Dual Front mode. Jackal can always see more footsteps since players move more actively in the game mode. Sledge can use his gadget to break anything quite quickly. Finka is good overall at bringing people up when enemies are “holding off” on killing a player so they don’t respawn immediately.

The Operator usage disparity will be greater than ever before, and some operators might not see any play at all. Dual Front isn’t really the “core” gameplay of Rainbow Six Siege X, but it is fun for new players.

Going Free-to-Play Poses a Different and Massive Challenge for Rainbow Six Siege X

Before getting to Rainbow Six Siege X’s core gameplay impressions, let’s examine the changes when it becomes free-to-play. Rainbow Six Siege will get visual enhancements, including map reworks to almost all the core maps.

While this is nice for veteran Siege players, it does nothing to entice new players into checking out the game for the first time. The biggest challenge that free-to-play competitive games struggle with is teaching the new players the game before they burn out.

Since we’ve had a decade of updates for Siege, it isn’t easy to pick up as a new player given there are over 74+ Operators and counting. Each has a unique playstyle and gadget, which may have different uses depending on the map. In short, a new player may take more than 500 hours of playing the game to learn everything at a base level.

Going free-to-play will attract many new players, but can they retain them? This leads us to the other changes.

Rainbow Six Siege X Core Gameplay Changes Makes Things More Complicated

Rainbow Six Siege X’s core gameplay changes mostly come from the added environmental destruction, particularly fire extinguishers for smoke, gas pipes for explosions, and more. Siege is already complicated enough with the breakable walls and floors and verticality gameplay, but these added “environmental” tools will add another layer to the core gameplay.

Twitch’s drones can destroy these pipes or even Maestro’s Evil Eye. Some synergies where Glaz may be used more often to see through the smoke will emerge. The game goes deeper, which isn’t good news for new players, especially since they’ll also be working on unlocking Operators.

Apart from the environmental destruction changes, players can now sprint through corners while rappelling, which is nice since it tactically helps the attackers position properly, and they need a lot of help right now.

The rest of the Siege X changes include improvements to audio, a communication wheel, weapon inspection, and the new anti-cheat Rainbow Six Siege Shield Guard.

The core gameplay doesn’t feel drastically different, but it does feel better. Rainbow Six SIege’s competitive gameplay is in a good spot compared to most games. Most changes will lure old players back, but they will need much more than this to keep them around.

Overall, I doubt these changes will make a massive impact.

The game needs a major overhaul to attract more players and satisfy them. However, Rainbow Six Siege could introduce more major changes, especially considering that they want to keep the game running for another decade.