Rainbow Six Seige By Stephen Gatej

Rainbow Six Siege:

A worldwide video game turned esport

By: Stephen Gatej

Promotional artwork showing off a few of the game’s characters photo by Ubisoft

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Tadrenaline rushes and sitting comfortably at home aren’t a likely pair. However, millions of people all around the world play video games for those very situations. But what does it take for a game to create these intense, heart-pounding moments? Rainbow Six Siege may just have the answer. Released in 2015, by game developer Ubisoft, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege (often referred to as “Siege”) is a highly competitive tactical shooter game available on PC, Xbox, and Playstation. There are two sides to the game, attacking and defending. Attackers try to infiltrate a building and must complete varying objectives, such as defusing a bomb or rescuing a hostage within a set time limit. Defenders try to prevent the attackers from accomplishing their tasks. However, there’s another way for either team to win a round: Killing every member of the opposing team. In Siege, instead of respawning right after you die, you must wait until the next round, which makes staying alive a major priority. This is exactly what creates the thrill in Siege. There are few things as intense as being

the lone player against a full team of people trying to kill you, even if it is just a video game. All of these factors lead to a game which is equally dominated by a need for mechanical skill, strategy, and cohesive teamwork. This saw Siege gain a lot of popularity over the years, and like many other big shooter games, an esports community began to blossom as a result. In 2017, the first professional league began. From there, it has become a very popular esport, with some of the biggest gaming organizations around the world taking part (TSM_FTX, Cloud9, G2, etc:). There are many different levels of competition as well, all the way from the highest level where players make a living off of Siege to semiprofessional players hoping to make it to the big leagues.

Andres Galvan is one of these aspiring players, and has been a part of multiple semi-pro teams. He has played Siege for six years, but started taking the game more seriously around two years ago. Galvan said that Siege is unique from other competitive games for a couple of reasons.

“You can open up an entire map to make you see better, and a lot of the map is breakable. That allows for new sight angles and sight lines, and allows you to shape the map the way you want it to be to give you the best advantage.”

He also noted the game’s unique leaning mechanics.

Andres Galvan locked in during a game of Siege photo by Andres Galvan

“The leaning can make or break your gameplay is the best way to put it. It’s definitely not in most games, and the way it’s done is, I think, very well executed. You can use it to peek around corners really quick so the other person can’t see you, and there are a couple other things you can do with it.”

Chris Lama is the vice president of Parabellum Esports, which is a gaming organization with professional teams in a few games (namely Siege and Rocket League). Their Siege team is currently in the highest tier of North American competition, the North America League (NAL). Lama listed a few reasons why Siege is unique within the esports scene.

“I think it’s super complicated to watch. But that’s not a bad thing. I think they’ve got a really good talent pool when it comes

to casters and analysts and they’re very involved in the community. So that’s one key. And then the other part. I guess the key differentiator is that it’s unlike any other eSports title out there when it comes to shooters, with it being stacked, as opposed to flat. And then just graphically it’s very nice. I think it’s a beautiful game.”

However, Siege is still just like any other esport in that it requires lots of dedication and work. Andres Galvan said he works on his individual quality, like his gunskill and game knowledge, for 3-5 hours “A lot of my time is spent just doing [training grounds], which is literally just shooting bots. It just helps me practice my aim, and the better gunner you are, the better the teams who pick you up will be. But that isn’t all of it. A lot of it is also your communication. So sometimes I’ll spend some time running through the maps and practicing my callouts. And sometimes I’ll just play some ranked, because the more you play, the ultimately better you are.” Galvan also said that improving as a team requires different kinds of practice.

“To grow as a team, you have to spend more time in scrims, dry-running, and doing VOD reviews. Scrims are just where you play another team, and other teams will show your mistakes to you - especially better ones. Better teams will punish you fairly easily and show you where your weaknesses are. Dry-runs are pretty much just your setups, like how you set up site, and how you want to defend.” Galvan explained. “[Finally], VOD review. This

is also used to figure out where your mistakes are. When you’re playing, you are kind of blinded by what’s going on in your face, rather than [seeing] everything that’s going on. VOD review gives us that kind of extra ability to see where mistakes are being made, because I can’t always be looking at my teammates, 24/7, and they can’t always be looking at me.”

Galvan offered one final piece of advice which he applies not only to video games but also his everyday life.

“Fix your mental [mentality]. A lot of video games in general, and honestly life in general, is just determined by how you look at a game or just a situation. I personally used to be a lot more negative, and I used to get really upset at my teammates, which would bring them down and also bring me down. So, if you’re going to try and get into gaming, have a positive mentality.”

Sadly, despite its unique premise, Siege is getting to be a fairly old game, and although the esports scene is doing well, the player base is getting progressively more frustrated due to serious issues in the game. One such issue is rampant cheating/ hacking in Siege, which frustrates players and turns them away from playing the game. Galvan said that for Siege to keep going strong, this problem must be resolved.

“I see a bright future for Rainbow, if they can take care of the cheating problem. Console Siege has a very nasty M&K infestation [a form of cheating in which players on consoles use hardware to play with a mouse and keyboard instead of a controller] where players just destroy other controller players, because M&K is just better than controller, and then PC has a cheating problem where they’re just shooting you through floors and completely destroying you. So, Siege has a bright future, but in order for that bright future to be fully realized, they need to take care of the cheating problem.”

Chris Lama agreed that the future of Siege is still in question and that even the currently healthy esports scene could experience some difficulties soon.

“The 2022 season is very important. And if they can structure and help support the league a little bit better, then the game will have a longer shelf life. Otherwise, we might be stuck in a period where it could possibly die in the next three years.”

Although the future of Siege is still uncertain, there have definitely been some highlights in recent times. One of these is the Siege Invitational, or S.I, which took place from February 8-20, 2022. At the Invitational, the best teams from all around the world compete to see who is truly the best. According to Andres Galvan, this year’s S.I. was a major success.

“We had a wonderful S.I. The production was amazing. They did an absolutely amazing job!”

On top of the recent Invitational, a brand new season of Siege esports is underway in North America and Europe, and the AsiaPacific and Latin American leagues are beginning to kick off. During these competitions, hundreds of the best players around the world will fight for supremacy within their region, as well as a spot in the next global competition, the Six Major in May.