Rainbow Six Siege

Rainbow Six Siege built its tactical shooter on destructible environments and an asymmetric battle between attackers and defenders. Before each round, defenders fortify a chosen building, set up barricades, and place traps, while attackers use reconnaissance drones to find weak points and plan a breach through walls, ceilings, or floors, which in Siege can be shot or blown open almost at will. A key element is the operators with unique gadgets — from barbed wire through hacking tools to special explosives — whose combinations within a team create a deep tactical layer on top of the shooting itself.

The game runs on the AnvilNext engine, adapted specifically for real-time environmental destruction, which was technically remarkable at the time of release and remains one of the series' main hallmarks to this day. Ubisoft has long supported the game with seasonal updates bringing new operators, maps, and gameplay adjustments, which has caused the game's meta to shift significantly over the years. Sound design plays a key role in Siege — footsteps, drilling into walls, or the sound of a breaching charge being placed often decide a fight before the shooting itself even begins.

Rainbow Six Siege's competitive scene has developed into its own Ubisoft-supported league, culminating in the Six Invitational, where the game is made readable for spectators through an overview of remaining players, tactical analysis of destruction, and commentators explaining trap placement and attack plans. Although the game has undergone numerous changes and tweaks since its 2015 release, the principle of destruction and operator abilities still sets it apart from other tactical shooters and keeps it a loyal community of players and professional teams.

A steep learning curve, tied to the need to know dozens of operators and their combinations, makes Rainbow Six Siege a game that can be played for years while still revealing new tactical possibilities. Over the years, Ubisoft also had to deal with technical challenges related to the stability of destructible environments in networked multiplayer, which led to a gradual refinement of the game engine. Today, Siege ranks among titles that have managed to keep an active player and viewer base for close to ten years since release.

Why play: For players willing to master dozens of operators and their combinations, it offers tactical depth that can be explored for years, along with an active player and viewer base spanning close to ten years since release.