Rainbow Six Siege used to be our preferred place to be when it came to multiplayer games because it was unique compared to other games. Based on the novel "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Seige," Rainbow is about a fictional group of international counterterrorism specialist operators from all over the world.
Although Rainbow started back in 1998, it has evolved from campaign mode to multiplayer mode, and by 2015, the game was rebooted with 20 base operators and Year 1 DLC operators: Valkyrie, Blackbeard, Caveira, Capitão, Frost, Buck, Hibana, Echo, and Recruit. The game itself pits the operators against each other in a VR simulation for training purposes. Six is a codename for Captian or Leader, as known by the introduction of Arnot and then Harry, whose job it was to recruit Rainbow operators and train them.
Toxicity through Gameplay
Rainbow was a tactical-based shooter where operators had to work together as a team to either attack or defend. There were several modes available in the beginning, which have again evolved with some improvements, but unfortunately, the major problem in the game has always been friendly fire. There are some players who simply cannot control themselves and play a game of cat and mouse by shooting and killing their own team members or ruining a game by killing the hostage.
Ubisoft has spent years trying to fix the issue with this instead of simply taking the ability out. Their excuse is that it makes the game more realistic. Why does everything have to be realistic? Killing your own team members because you have no control over your anger is not realistic but downright toxic, hence the reason Rainbow has a bad name for toxicity. Due to this, we abandoned the game as it was simply unplayable or enjoyable because friendly fire was a daily or every other match annoyance.
Mess in the Making
A few years later, we decided to give it another go and went back to playing, as apparently Ubisoft had made more improvements to the game. No, the friendly fire is still there, and team killing is just as prevalent as it was back then. Although annoying, we continued to play, and suddenly friendly fire, although annoying, took a back seat to what Ubisoft has done to Rainbow.
The game has newer operators and maps, and there have been some changes to the code of conduct where you can build up your reputation or standing with some rewards. Sadly, even this is broken, as the game seems to forget your reputation and standing. Still, this has improved the friendly fire problem, but not immediately, as in our first match, a guy comes in, kills the hostage, then leaves.
But that's not the real problem today, and now we have too many annoying distractions. Rainbow has evolved into Fortnite. Now, I am not judging Fornite; we play it and love it, but it's like Rainbow, another unique game that publishers are intent on destroying. Anyway, back to Rainbow, we now have a bunch of teenagers who treat it like a battle royal game and no longer work as a team but simply do their own thing.
If we go back to when Rainbow was released in 2015, you went through a training process with each operator and learned the game and how to use operators. Now people jump in dressed up as bananas and expect us to take it seriously. I get that people like cosmetics, but now we have this constant distraction that instead of playing a tactical game of 5v5 with specialist operators, we are playing battle royal with a banana (a slight exaggeration, but you get the gist). Its not the events thats the problem its using these skins post event. It's not only annoying to be distracted by ridicula skins, but it also takes away from what made the game truly great.
We are still playing Rainbow, but it's getting harder by the day to see it as what made it truly great, and it's filled with so many bugs to the point of pure annoyance. I have a lot of respect for developers, but I fear there is too much interference from the higher-ups. Ubisoft has this increadable ability to ruin what works to try and reinvent the wheel and turn it into a roadblock, and they do it with almost all of their games. They abandon what makes a game great and improve it by destroying it and turning it into something it is not and should never be. They have vision but have no idea how to implement it into their games.
End note: This is not a review but purely an opinion based on my own experience. I am not here to tell people what to play or how to play it. I'm not suggesting you stop playing either, and if you're happy playing a tactical shooter like a Battle Royal and dressing up as a Unicorn, then that's all that matters.
