Ubisoft's Contrition And Its Seasonal Experiment — GGDB
"New releases now only represent a part of our business, which is now focused on long-term engagement with our player communities, our players not only play for more hours at a time but do so over a period of months or even years. We are thus able to offer them new experiences and content, thereby extending the lifetime of our games."
— Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft
INTRODUCTION
Ubisoft
Welcome to GGDB! Today I wanted us to look over the past and the present of the Ubisoft Company and the games that they bolster including some of their failures and how they have taken it to heart to make a comeback with some of their most popular titles, for the most part, Rainbow Six: Siege, The Division and even Ghost Recon: Wildlands.
But to do this, we obviously have to look at some of their past, some of their mistakes and most definitely a recounting of some of their franchises and how they have kept them going along the years with either their missteps or otherwise.
I won't speak about Assassin's Creed Origins in this one because I don't currently own it and I feel like it is too soon to say or find it totally interesting at the moment to entice that game and play through it, but surely enough, I will dedicate time towards it.
Background Galore:
It all began in 1986 with six brothers; Christian Guillemot, Claude Guillemot, Gérard Guillemot, Michel Guillemot &Yves Guillemot. They founded the company Ubi Soft together in Carentoir, a small village located in the Brittany region in France.
Yves (Current Chairman and CEO) soon made deals with Sierra, MicroProse and Electronic Arts to distribute and sell their games in France. By the end of the decade, Ubisoft enticed other markets and began expanding towards countries like the United States, United Kingdom and Germany. They entered the video game distribution and wholesale market and by 1993 they had become the largest video games distributor in France. What followed is obviously history, opening new locations in Annecy, Shanghai, Montreal and Milan.
What we know from here is history, games under their hand have flourished and died, and even outright failed. They have had controversies and much more but the most important one to talk about at this very moment is the attempted takeover by Vivendi Universal.
Vivendi Hostility:
Ever since 2015 the behemoth French mass media company Vivendi had been seeking to expand its properties and reach through acquisitions of other businesses and deals. Ubisoft become one of the first target properties identified by Vivendi which as of September 2017 has an estimated value of $6.4 Million.
However, on two separate occasions during October of 2015, Vivendi bought shares of Ubisoft Stock giving them a 10.4% stake in Ubisoft. Something that CEO and Chairman Yves Guillemot contested and considered unwelcome and feared the possibility of a hostile takeover. Something further stressed during E3 2016, where Yves would mention and continue to stress the importance of Ubisoft's independence to maintain its creative freedom.
By mid-June of 2016, Vivendi scored and increased its shares to 20.1%, but denied it was in the process of a takeover. But by the time Ubisoft's annual board meeting took place in September 2016 Vivendi had gained 23% of the shares while the Guillemots were able to increase their voting share to 20%. A request was made during the board meeting to allow Vivendi Representatives on Ubisoft's board as their size of their shareholdings was certainly large enough, however, Yves argued strongly against this option and ultimately succeeded in swaying other members of the board to deny any board seats to Vivendi.
But as of December 2016, Vivendi continued to buy shares in Ubisoft approaching the 30% mark that could trigger a hostile take over, by December it held 27.15% stakes in Ubisoft.
Reuters would also report in April of 2017 that Vivendi's takeover would likely happen that year as well. However, The Guillemot family has since raised their stake in Ubisoft and as of June 2017, they held a 13.6% of Ubisoft's share capital and a 20.02% of the company's voting rights. In October 2017 Ubisoft announced a deal with an Investment Sevices Provider that would help them purchase back 4 million shares by the end of the year, preventing others and specifically Vivendi from buying these.
At this time Vivendi has reported in November of 2017 that it has no plans to acquire Ubisoft for the following six months, nor would they seek board positions given the shares they held during that time.
Games:
Now, it all began with a couple games released in 1986 which would be the following released for multiple platforms including the Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, MS-DOS, Commodore 64, among others.
These games were Zombi, Masque and Fer et flamme. But ever since these games released, Ubisoft now holds a catalogue of what could be over 300 games in store. both series that are continuing to release and series that have been run down into the ground. Some of these being the following.
Far Cry, Assassin's Creed, Prince of Persia, America's Army, Brother's In Arms, Blazing Angels, Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, Anno, Call of Juarez, Armored Core, Beyond Good & Evil, Driver, I Am Alive, Just Dance, Rayman, Rabbids, South Park, HAWX, Splinter Cell, Zombi, Watch Dogs, among many others.
This being said, you can probably create a mental image of how many games they have obtained over the years and how many games have been missing in today's industry. Most definitely Prince of Persia being one of those.
Standard Procedure Of Controversy:
At this point and time, it is still surprising that I am going to write something in a fair and good light when it comes to the regards of a company such as Ubisoft, one that I didn't have a lot of care for in the past few years including myself not watching most of their conferences, at least when I wanted to avoid the secondhand embarrassment that one can get from watching them.
A company that has been regarding as the 'New EA' by Forbes in 2014, being involved in several controversies of different scales and calibre that ranged from the use of Microtransactions to the down grading of their video games and the botched launch of several games three of which I will talk about here in more detail - Those three being Rainbow Six Siege with their broken NET Codes, The Division with their once uninteresting map and gameplay and Ghost Recon Wildlands, saved by other factors, despite not being a good Ghost Recon game, nor a Ghost Recon game at all.
But included in those controversies has been the lack of Dedicated Servers in a game like For Honor, the downgrade in graphics of Rainbow Six: Siege and even the removal of an emote for the female Valkyrie in For Honor (That didn't need to be removed in my opinion)
However, many people have truly ventured into this topic in a more in-depth manner than I can as of right now, mostly because I have dedicated the majority of this article to the games themselves rather than the background, however, this is included, because to reach the end, we must start somewhere - so why not from the beginning?
CHAPTER I
Open Worlds
Profits, Profits, Profits:
Arguably the most important part of making a game an Open World game is usually the fact that people enjoy them, at least from the popularity of games like Grand Theft Auto would let you believe.
They usually reign in profits no matter what margin and aim they hope to take, this being said, the appeal of an open world game is usually the fact that these games were made from an open world perspective and direction.
A game like The Division is good because it is built to be an open-world shooter, a game like Ghost Recon: Wildlands is bad for a whole different reason; taking away its identity for the aim of popularity and profit. Ultimately; if it makes money, it's good, doesn't matter how many strings you have to pull to get there.
At least in the eyes of a bigger company.
Content Over Substance:
One of the biggest demands of the Open World design is the content over substance model, this is something that Ubisoft does so well yet so badly, they currently have three open world games battling against each other in Assassin's Creed Origins, The Division and Wildlands and only two of them often deliver on this demand while one of them fails entirely to deliver and instead focuses on its multiplayer aspect and PvE events.
That is Wildlands, focusing on their Ghost War mode along with their PvE events such as the Predator event that they have released recently in December. That being said, Ghost Recon has lost its identity going into Open World, which may be why it struggles so badly to deliver on this demand. It was never meant to be an open world game, but I digress.
Unlike Wildlands, Origins and Division offer a world riddled not only with gorgeous visuals but a world that is worth it to explore, Division taking that to a hundred with their Survival mode which I will later expand upon.
CHAPTER II
A Continuous Program
Unfinished Game; Later Polish:
One of the biggest issues found in the current experiments that Ubisoft has provided in the past three years or so has been the lack of polish when it comes to the launch of their games, this being clearly illustrated by the various issues with their last few games.
Somewhat, forcing me to dub it the Pay First; Enjoy Later status quo, this has been something that Ubisoft is in dear need to puzzle out, and not only that, they should always compromise their launches for the guarantee of quality at launch.
Of course, this also brings a few other questions to the table, for the most part, the seasonal schedule they have built for themselves and their microtransaction schemes that for the most part haven't really been all that bad when it comes to games like The Division and Rainbow Six Siege, following a very hands-off structure offering just skins and new glorified gear skins. Separating itself from the somewhat cosmetic and instead embracing what cosmetics can do; in the case of The Division, they give you clothes and sprays for said clothes.
All of this being said, they must guarantee quality control, especially because in the long run they won't be as lucky as to have the retention of Rainbow Six Siege be replicated, Siege was a one-off that worked so well because of the team that built upon the already established design and committed to it as well as a marketing push that most certainly could be seen as a huge leap of faith from Ubisoft toward the game. However, if they hadn't done these steps, Siege would be just another game in the bottom of the lake. - Or in the gaming industry, buried under the dirt.
Either way, this brings the next point of contention, that being the following:
Seasons Ahoy:
From what I can see in this fateful future of Ubisoft, I think they have been focusing really heavily upon distributing content in several seasons to keep the community alive and playing their games. From the seasons of content that were provided for The Division that finally fixed all if not most of the issues that the game had at launch to this day with their yearly setting of expansions and updates that still continue in a smaller scale with their Global Events.
This carried on to Wildlands and Siege as well as including both For Honor and to a lesser extent with a traditional season pass; Assassin's Creed Origins bringing in new post-launch story content to carry on the story.
However, it has proven to be a somewhat extremely gracious way to bring content to the players, mostly in a manner that brings new content and new updates for free to change and overhaul the experience as the lifetime of the game is subsequently extended, and it has certainly proven incredibly successful with For Honor allegedly garnering millions of players, though a quick search will reveal that at least in Steam they garner 1,000 players or 2,000 players at most.
Despite this, their alleged growth could certainly be further supported by their development schedule that will, for the most part, offer these changes to the games as taken from For Honor's official site in a post on the subject:
Dedicated Servers – The development team at Ubisoft Montreal is currently working on a dedicated server infrastructure. In conjunction with the dedicated server implementation, enhancing peer-to-peer stability and matchmaking remain priorities for the team.
Two New Seasons – In August and November, For Honor will receive new season updates, introducing adjustments to the way players fight on the battlefield. Content from each of these seasons includes new heroes, maps, gear variations, gameplay updates and more. All season pass owners will receive early access to the new heroes released during the season. Further details will be revealed at a later date.
New Game Features – Competitive play with a duel tournament feature and ranked 4v4 matches, as well as a brand-new 4v4 PvP game mode, will be added to For Honor in the coming months.
New Training Mode – A more robust training option for both new and veteran players to hone their skills before heading to the battlefield.
Global Balancing Updates – Building on the updates since launch, For Honor will receive more changes aimed at balancing heroes and game modes. Some of these changes will improve elements of the fighting system to make attacking more advantageous while putting more pressure on defence. All these changes will be tested via public test environments on PC with the first test starting today.
So, in the end, if they continue down this road, they will see an incremental increase or decrease in their numbers judging where they take their games in the future; the real question is this: Will they go for greed, or will they care about the player? They have certainly reached a good balance between income and player fidelity, but for how long?
CHAPTER III
The Wildlands Syndrome
Ghost Recon has been a series that I grew up with, for the most part, the originals have certainly been very special for me, and so have been the Advanced Warfighter series.
So seeing some of the mistakes made by Ubisoft Paris and Massive Entertainment has been somewhat heartbreaking to say the least, coming from a game with such heavy promise in Ghost Recon Future Soldier, I think they would've been better off replicating the good aspects that they learned upon back then that returned Future Soldier to most of their roots and was received with a heavy positive output in the form of Ghost Recon Future Soldier Raven Strike DLC instead of going open world, because simply, Open World is not going to benefit the Ghost Recon design.
And this game isn't Ghost Recon. Looks like it, with several options for squad command that at best are insulting and incredibly tacked on, but, this is not the Ghost Recon we knew and loved. However, one could definitely make the argument that Ghost Recon lost its identity a long time ago, becoming, but a phantom.
Disclaimer: I originally had intended to include Predator Mode in this section, but due to my inability to actually spend time trying it out after I was away from my Xbox for a while during the event, I have decided to keep it out. It would not be genuine if I simply regurgitated someone else's words on the game mode.
A Good Game:
Hiding beneath all the murk and hideous storytelling and world-building, Ghost Recon: Wildlands is at the core a good game to play with your friends and to enjoy on your own. Be it from the updates, Ghost War or just overall breaking the game in the campaign with some of your friends.
Ghost Recon has a good idea to build upon, a couple special forces operatives going behind enemy lines and you get to play the operations in the order you desire. But when it comes to this, the design should compliment the idea of free roaming your missions instead of allowing full freedom to do whatever you want and go outside the boundaries of the ROE and beyond.
What Ghost Recon Wildlands struggles with the most is trying to be a Special Forces game focused on tactics with a design akin to that of Grand Theft Auto with unreal driving mechanics and an awful progression tree system. However, let's break these issues down into a few different parts.
Lost Identity:
What compels me the most is how the Ghost Recon Wildlands devs seriously struggled with getting this right, most importantly, struggled to retain the identity within an Open World game that quite simply; this is not Ghost Recon.
Ghost Recon used to be a game series with a heavy focus on realism and tactics, where every action mattered and it could lead to an eventual Game Over screen if you did something wrong. That's the identity of Ghost Recon that a game like Wildlands and even Future Soldier doesn't get right. And even then, Future Soldier got more right than Wildlands did about the identity of the series.
I couldn't help but wonder while replaying some of the Future Soldier missions for another upcoming article; what if they tried again to recreate what they aimed for in the beginning of the Ghost Recon Future Soldier idea but with the current engine and the current freedom of a better generation of video games and software.
I think, if they hadn't been seemingly forced to make an open world game that struggles between being tactical and being an open world game like any other so much, it would've been better.
As evidenced by Ghost War, Ghost Recon is at its best when it is a linear, big map, tactical shooter. Like it used to be.
The Ghost War
Ghost War has to be the most controversial thing to come out of the Ghost Recon: Wildlands package, not because it created any controversy, or because it is bad, but because of just how much it defeats the purpose of what the Wildlands design set out to build.
Ghost War is the definitive proof that the team that built this game still has it in them to make a good Ghost Recon game and a good tactical multiplayer shooter with compelling mechanics and nerve wrecking intensity such as Rainbow Six Siege.
Every second is a struggle to get high ground of a 4v4 game and anything can happen, with unbalanced playing fields that feel like one team has the upper hand, but maps big enough and linear enough that it feels like anyone can have the upper hand, depending on how well your team plays, you can either lose it or win it.
The decision is in your hands and you can either have the winning play from the high ground, you can flank the enemy sniper in his cheeky little spot or you can die at the objective at the last second, every second is a thrill.
However, many issues plague the mode that is by far one of the most enjoyable features of the game that keeps me coming back. From the common sight of a rage quitter in solo queue (who are rampant because there's no real hindering factor to rage quitting), quitting a match because someone is a lower level no matter what his player skill is, and even the sight of some god awful microtransactions.
Which, of course, I have to talk about them.
P2W Microtransactions:
In my incredibly short exposure to the Ghost War multiplayer mode - Which is incredibly fun as I stated before, I have certainly been stricken with the short end of the stick multiple times, for the most part, because the learning curve is quite steep, also because other players can simply buy the classes and specialisations they desire.
As opposed to the other examples of multiplayer micro-transaction content in the Ubisoft games that I will speak about in this article, Ghost Recon Wildlands offers a plethora of different options for clothes and equipment that is quickly overshadowed by the minutiae of content that brings forth the ability to purchase abilities and roles that bring you at least one specialised weapon.
With the introduction of Microtransactions to this game, the team has certainly hit a foul play with these, not only because of the aforementioned detail but because it really disadvantages the playing field and offers a game-changing series of options that you can simply unlock by paying real money for it if you don't want to grind, hilariously so, coming from a game mode with a design so heavily focused on the reliance on your teammates and tactics you're offered the easy way out with some of these options.
CHAPTER IV
The Divided Case
Perhaps one of my biggest disappointments in gaming history has to be The Division, having been onboard since the very first debut trailer released at E3 2013. I would go as far as even participating in the Alpha test for the game.
But that wouldn't stop there, most of the disappointment came when I realised that the Beta was the exact same thing as the Alpha with little to no changes amongst other things, something that would surely show the state that the game would be in by release.
I made the conscious choice to not buy it and I stood by that choice since, until today, pretty much. Almost two years after its release in March 8th, 2016, I came back to it.
And it finally feels like a complete game.
How It Has Grown:
The Division has seen such growth in numbers and content that it should've had at launch, but now that it is here, I welcome it. As of right now, there are 21,742 players on the game in Steam alone. The irony of this was the fact that this was a game that saw a loss of a 93% of players three months beyond its launch.
It has also seen an exponential growth in content that is seemingly the best in the market from what I can see in the current industry. An Industry with games like Destiny that thrive from half-arsed content releases, however, Division thrives on proper content that would be worth your time.
With the DLC coming directly into the development fray for its first year including Underground, Survival and Last Stand, along with the fact that Year 2 has not contained paid DLC with Updates 1.7 and 1.8 Resistance.
The Division is already making scales from what could be one of Ubisoft's most visually appealing and most gameplay incentive game to date along with Rainbow Six: Siege.
At least when contrasted to Wildlands.
What Once Failed:
It's no secret The Division was an utter failure at launch, having been part of the ALPHA test and the Beta test, both closed and open, I knew for a fact how bad things were going to be; which ultimately led me to the decision of not getting the game at launch, a decision that upon some time later evolved into not buying the game at all.
At least, for a while.
For starters, the ALPHA contained the same content and aspects of the Beta without change or tweaks, to the point where the aloha felt like a glorified beta, usually ALPHAs are very early content; content that is not set in stone either way, however, The Division was very definitive in its content, which really shines a light upon the issues that partook in the downgrade of the content and it's visuals from the very first E3 trailer to today, obviously, The Division looks far better today than it did back then.
But nonetheless, this presented several issues upon first inspection, bullet spongey enemies, connectivity issues in the servers, equipment that served no strategic or actual value at all (Clothing, Water, etc), and more.
These issues presented themselves fairly early in development, and they carried over to the Betas, and ultimately, it carried over to the infamous launch day, that would garner about 113,877 players on Steam alone, and they would most definitely look at the state of the game, and would not like what they see.
The aforementioned issues were still present, and more issues cropped up from the woodwork.
DLC Requirement Errors
Delta 20001082: Following The Division 1.3 Update players reported that they couldn't access some of the game’s missions after downloading the latest update and the Underground Expansion.
Cheaters
Delta 20000988: A small number of Xbox One owners report not being able to connect to The Division servers reliably for more than five minutes at a time.
Mike 20250383 (Server Down)
Random PC Crashes
Graphical Glitches
Object and Environment glitching
Dark Zone level resets after updates
PS4 Error Code WC-40355-7
Missing Special Events
Banning
Unable to start missions in Coop
Sound glitches
Malfunctioning Voice Chats
Stat glitches
Among many other things, this doesn't paint a pretty picture, does it? Obviously, this is why The Division's player retention was downright mediocre in its first months of existence and even going as far as a year into its existence.
However, many of these things were fixed, and by the time of writing this, I have experienced zero issues outside of my own native connectivity issues along with disconnects due to the packet loss being too high.
Despite this, I have enjoyed my time with The Division, but I would not let its issues fall on the back burner.
Surviving The Zone:
Probably one of the most visually intensive modes that I have played when it comes to immersing yourself in a world, Survival delivers more than it bolsters and it delivers excellent content that will keep you at the edge of your seat every time you play it.
In my first go, I managed to go at it for an hour and a half before being killed, but at the same time it feels like a true challenge, jumping in the mode you have to juggle a couple objectives those being the following:
Maintain yourself alive through the blizzard, craft clothes for yourself and your buddies, keep a mental map of where the hot spots are and you will advance accordingly.
Look for medicine as you have a deadly disease that is eating at you, if you do not, you risk dying from the disease, you only have an hour to live so think carefully how to manage your medicine and resources, along with keeping your buddies alive.
Craft weaponry and advanced gear to keep yourself alive in the cold as there are terrors lurking in the form of other players or NPCs.
Craft gear and proper survival rate equipment for a venture into the Dark Zone.
Head into the Dark Zone, Complete Your Mission.
It's simple, but it works so well, especially as it feels like you're actually surviving the blizzard. The game will also help you with certain notes being left in safe houses that will allow you to know exactly what you need for your mission, but if you want to figure it out for yourself, don't hit X on them.
As for the Dark Zone, the closer you get to it the more unnerving the gameplay becomes, with more difficult enemies the game becomes colder and colder until you finally enter the Dark Zone, with a proper Filter of course, you will have to find your way around to retrieve antidotes at your specified locations.
This, is where you meet the Hunter.
The biggest headache I have experienced but also the most thrilling enemy to fight in the game, with the proper weapons you can easily take him out, but when you're outmatched, you're either better off calling it quits and running away, or attempting to play it safe.
This is where tactics come in, equipped with EMP grenades the Hunter can easily fish you out of cover, so you have to play it safe with your movement and cover positioning, covers are your friend, but so is movement. So you must keep moving whatever the cost, he's usually equipped with high caliber weapons that make it fairly menacing to fight but so thrilling to finally defeat.
Once you have escaped, say goodbye to the cold night, and say hello to some new, hard earned, loot.
Changes Made:
As part of the changes brought to The Division through many days in development, that one probably cannot go without mentioning the number of bugs and the desperate grind that the game was from Launch that they have fixed along with bullet sponge enemies and cheaters.
I think the most important fixes and changes provided to the game were the ability to manually activate Rogue Mode in the Dark Zone, the Optimisation Table, amongst others. Right now I will hope to deliver a tidy list of changes provided as of right now.
Manual Rogue Activation
Optimisation Table
Global Strike Events
The Terminal in the Base of Operations
Resistance Mode
West Side Pier
New Gear
New Weaponry
Skirmish
Dark Zone 7, 8 and 9
Landmark Enemy Waves
Fast Travel Between Checkpoints
Non-Bullet Spongey Enemies
Better Crafting Table
Contamination Events
Legendary Difficulty
Better Skills and Skill Powers
PvP Balancing
Economy Changes
In-Game Store
Microtransactions
Among many other things that I am either forgetting to mention or didn't find at the moment. But you get the idea, the game has changed, a lot of new things have been added that honestly make the game better, which brings me to my next point.
The Micros.
Microtransactions:
Something that everyone I know personally can agree on is that Microtransactions are the vermin of video games, but surprisingly enough I have never seen anyone talk about the ones in The Division.
And that is with good reason, because they aren't at all, intrusive. In my 7 to 8 hours playing in the past day - That I will continue to play - I have obtained over 12 boxes for simply playing the game with no effort at all, it works with a set of key cards that you can build by killing yellow bosses, or that is at least how I understood it.
However, the contents of the box are not at all intrusive to the gameplay or P2W, they're clothes, sprays and often times, more parts to build more key cards.
Which frankly, I was surprised at how well they worked, especially seeing the number of people that buy them in the Terminal or at the very least get them from simply playing the game. And it can lead to some really cool clothes in the process, clothes that I am honestly too in love with at the moment because they certainly fit my character well.
But that isn't where it stops, Division allows you to obtain your own special currency aside from the cards that will allow you to buy what you want without using the boxes in the first place. The box is just a gimmick that allows you to get whatever the game wants while also allowing you to buy exactly what you want. Which is far better than anything else I have seen in the market.
Though, Ubi, give me a gas mask, please.
Environmental Storytelling:
By far, one of the most intriguing aspects of The Division has to be the inclusion of a dedicated environmental storytelling mechanic with the ECHO as well as the collectables. They show the events that you weren't able to see the moment the outbreak broke out and through it, it gives you enough of an opening to satiate your curiosity and explore the barren city of New York of a post-biological attack.
But most of all, the most interesting pieces of information that The Division can actually provide has to be the ECHOs, where you can actually piece together certain aspects of what happened as well as feeling like a detective trying to piece together a crime with some of them.
The windows of opportunity that this gives as well are fantastic, as you will find yourself looking for several different collectable pieces such as the phones, locations of lost agents, solving deaths, finding drone crashes that will grant you access to the black box recording and beyond.
Coupled together with the amazing visuals and the score of The Division, it feels like a world that opens its arms and lets you explore, of course, it wasn't always as welcoming, however, if you ever wanted to jump in on the game, now is the time.
CHAPTER V
A Streaming Rainbow
[Make Sure To Listen To My Favourite Song In The Game]
Rainbow Six: Siege has been one of gaming's biggest redemptions in the past few years, at the beginning, the game only bolstered 7,941 avg players on Steam alone in December of 2015, seeing a retention that was, for the most part, outright pitiful thanks to the various issues that plagued the games, and even the news outlets and media were discussing 'Why You Should Not Buy Rainbow Six' and more.
The game even saw massive player drops across the months ever since release with people that had experienced the beta and either loved it or hated it coming and going and hating or defending the game. The game even saw a loss of -7.51% in player gain falling to 7,069 avg players by the time May came, that's when the game was at its lowest point.
But beyond this, what saved this game is a commitment to an idea and the trust that the developers had on the idea so that it would take off. As well, as the support that Ubisoft gave them to fix the game's issues with the constant evolution that the game has seen.
From terrible NET Codes to the Stim Glitch that granted you 9999 stim packs while playing Doc, it seemed like the game was destined to fail from the start with a complete diversion from the traditional Rainbow Six formula coming from the late Rainbow Six: Patriots that ultimately failed as a story driven game came to be a game that focused so much on its multiplayer content that is the game that we know and love in the present day.
Today, Rainbow Six Siege bolsters over 74,999 avg players with an all-time peak of 125,133 players on the Steam platform alone. With an incredible atmosphere of competitiveness, fantastic operators that one can easily relate to whether it be by your personality, their gadgets and beyond and a fantastic player retention and growth of a community that has kept it alive far longer than it should've been alive for.
Rainbow Six: Siege defies expectation and it still continues to impress. With the modernisation of its formula and the complete focus on tactical multiplayer gameplay, Rainbow Six is certainly one of a kind in the aspect that it was not supposed to survive. Much like The Division.
Constant Evolution:
The biggest strength that Rainbow Six: Siege has is the constant evolution of its ecosystem, with the constant growth in depth and complexity with new operators, maps and fixes to the fidelity of the graphics and connectivity among many other things.
Siege is a game that defies expectations as the content it has release has been entirely free for everyone to have with the exception of new Micro transaction content and the Operators, who you can still unlock with your renown credits, R6 credits, or with the season passes of the yearly content.
By the time of writing this, Ubisoft has vowed that they will not be releasing a sequel to Siege, instead, they will commit to bringing out new content and keeping the game alive for an extended period of ten years, committing to releasing new content over time. And if the content that has been released is any indication, I have no qualms with this, as long as they keep a modicum of polish to their content and release good, intriguing and great content.
I'm completely fine with this.
A Flourishing Community:
In the last year Rainbow Six: Siege has been one of the fastest growing communities in the gaming scene, with people on the YouTube scene like Gregor, AnthonyPit and Twomad with a decent amount of subscribers with their - for the most part - funny moments approach to their content regarding the operators as ways of tutorials and beyond.
Siege has grown far beyond what most people in Day One could've imagined, including me, having had the game since Day One albeit, with not a lot of people to play with so constant solo queuing was a thing. I experienced a plethora of great, bad and heartbreaking moments playing the game since the betas and a few enraging ones with the data centre connectivity. But I digress.
With the new approach to marketing that the game has been having and the new Outbreak release, I can only see Rainbow Six growing more and more. And it will be a welcome growth.
Identity Kept; But Modernised:
One of the many things that keep me coming back to Siege is the very fact that this is a Rainbow Six game with a new face on a new generation. It has most of the things I remembered from my days playing the OGs and Vegas 2 alone in my bricked Xbox 360, Terrorist Hunt was one of the game modes that I played almost religiously on Vegas 2 with or without my brother or my best friend when we were at my place playing in the good old couch coop version that is split screen.
But beyond that, Siege is a Rainbow Six game with an intense multiplayer mode that caters to my tactical sensibilities. From Mute to Doc to IQ to Thermite, they all feel like a blast to play and the maps really make the experience an amazing encounter every time.
But most importantly is the fact that this game is completely different from most of the older Rainbow Six games, and yet, I find it to be the best since Vegas 2 in my honest opinion. So what they achieved is to keep the identity but change the formula entirely and it paid off so well. Although, while I may have prefered that they'd given us two factions to play as in the multiplayer with the cops and robbers style of their original concept art and trailer instead of the units of Rainbow facing each other.
I still believe that Rainbow Six is a game that does so much well that it almost overshadows the bad. So much so I decided not to speak about them in detail for this section of the article.
A Return To Storytelling:
Enter, Outbreak.
After the announcement that they would not be making a sequel and that they would be focusing on bringing more content to the game for the course of 10 years and possibly more if the bet they're playing their hand with proves successful; the one worry that comes to mind is how will they keep player retention?
Just with new operators and new maps? In my opinion, that would not be enough to satisfy players for ten years. Well, at least, in the case of this game. Overwatch has proven that it can be done with just a few new heroes, skins and maps. But beyond that, Rainbow Six: Siege has the basis and foundation to build more upon their Multiplayer content, adding new fortification tweaks to the overall ecosystem.
But even more than the multiplayer, Outbreak, for the most part, will either be the be all end all for the story focus of the Rainbow Six franchise that previous instalments had along with their focus on their tactical mechanics and gameplay.
With a cast of likeable characters and a compelling concept to base their stories upon, I think that Rainbow Six can be great in all aspects, gameplay, story and cooperative play. It already has all the pieces in place, not it's a matter of using them. While Patriots failed and never saw the light of day, Siege already has a fan base.
Just focus on the following things, and you'll be fine:
- Pick and choose carefully the personality traits created by your community like Overwatch to sprinkle on your characters to make them more likeable, relatable and create engagement between the players and the characters as most already connect to them with the personalities they have given them. - Pick a compelling story setting, reference earlier Rainbow Six games if need be. - Always release good, polished story content.
CHAPTER VI
Conclusions
What To Expect:
Considering where Ubisoft has gone, where it has been, and where it is going with this pseudo episodic content, I think the future seems bright for the men and women at Ubisoft.
That being, if they truly, do commit to quality over numbers and commit to pumping the best content they possibly can out of the door with proper managing and marketing such as Operation: Chimera coming with the Outbreak update soon.
However, I do not worry, I think that Ubisoft has figured out what works and what doesn't with some of their experiments and are committed to bringing some of the best content they can to our doors. At least, some portion of it, as evidenced by Wildlands, it can be pretty toxic or as evidenced by The Division and Rainbow Six Siege, it can be pretty productive.
However, this brings me to my final thoughts.
Conclusive Words:
In the end, the company that was once named worse than EA, or the 'Second EA', a company which has won the worst company in America twice as far as I can gather in 2016 and 2017.
I think Ubisoft has a lot to learn from their issues and their mistakes that they have committed in the past several years, promising amazing visuals and delivering half of the promise, releasing games in a broken state to polish them later. Ubisoft certainly has a lot of history to catch up on, and I'd like to believe that they have been playing catch up the last year, or so.
Giving the Rainbow Team enough freedom to fix their game, same with the collective of Massive Entertainment, Red Storm Entertainment, Ubisoft Reflections and Ubisoft Annecy who have worked upon The Division tirelessly from the looks of it to fix the game and deliver at least some of the experience that they promised years ago in that fateful E3 debut trailer for the series, that for the most part depicted the game as a multiplayer world with several factions of players pitted against each other.
However, I digress.
From all the companies working in games in the last year or so, Ubisoft has shown to be at least some light that shines upon the incredibly rocky future of the gaming industry and it has been certainly for the better as far as I can see.
Let's just hope their gamble with their seasonal content works out, and let's hope they have learned from their mistakes as other companies have not. If they haven't let us show them what all they need to learn, because as last year has shown us, companies can have redemptions, but it is up to us, the consumers, to usher in the change that is needed if only we have the strength to carry forward a continuous campaign. Revolutions are not achieved in a day, I have seen it, and been involved in several attempts and riots, this is no different although, it is on a mere social scale.
Let us just show them the way.
"We are saying extremely loudly here: there is no sequel planned, we will be here for the next 10 years. So expect more Rainbow 6 in your life for quite some time."
— Alexandre Remy Ubisoft Brand Director
They're committing, and with commitment comes responsibility. While they don't owe us anything in specific, the least that they owe is quality and good quality at that. Something they have proven they can achieve.
Ubisoft, let yourself the be the best you can be. Change the course of the industry because all it takes is one change of course.
Show that good, quality and polished content that has plenty to offer will bring money regardless of whether it has microtransactions or not. In which case, if you decide to include Micros.
DO NOT MAKE THEM SHADY AND CREEPY FOR FUCKS SAKE.
AUTHOR'S NOTES
One More Ending
And that's it! That brings this article to its fateful end today, been a bit in the making, mostly something I spoke about with my brother a month ago in his car while we were waiting in line for gas, this article has made me seen Ubisoft in a better light than I did before, for the most part with all the research and beyond, playing their games, coming to terms with buying The Division and being blown away by it - Albeit, not having reached level 30 yet to play any of the DLC outside of Survival, so I'll owe you my thoughts on that for later.
I would also like to say that I apologise for the lack of content in January, I have been dealing with computer issues so it's been definitely a stressing couple of weeks and even a stressing month.
I am proud of this piece today, I hope you enjoy it just as much as I enjoyed making it for you all. And I have been changing the face of my site and my other things like my Twitter and my Patreon, with the help of my boys and the best fucking lads I know; Kyle, Rythaze and Joshua!
Animated Thumbnail: Joshua Ezzell
Site Background and new Graphics: Joshua Ezzell
Header and Graphics style: Kyle
Art: Rythaze
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