This game is like a passionate but abusive relationship: when it's good, it's really really good and when it's bad it's terrible. Even though I'm giving it a Not Recommended I will likely continue playing it until something better comes along because Rainbow Six Siege, for all its faults, is fairly unique in terms of tactical shooters and Ubisoft knows this.

Few FPS games have the kind of adrenaline-pumping high stakes spikes of stress and relief that Siege brings to the table. That is the extent of my praise for the game. Do with it as you like.

Having said that, Ubisoft has continually mismanaged this game for the last 2-3 years. Their constant tooling and re-tooling of the game adds nothing but confusion and frustration with actual improvements taking years to manifest. Every season brings with it haphazard changes as Ubisoft scrambles to appease high ELO and pro players whose complaints are immediately addressed by Ubisoft.

Meanwhile the game is absolutely AWASH in hackers and smurfs who basically ruin the experience for people who are just trying to find a decent evenly-matched game and Ubisoft looks the other way. Hackers flagrantly post their highlights on YouTube and their accounts continue to exist weeks and weeks after posting.

Then there's the absolutely-lowest-effort practices of Ubisoft devs. There haven't been any new permanent maps in years, the last new one, Outback, came out two years ago. In fact Rainbow Six Siege is probably the ONLY AAA-game on the market that actually CUTS content from its game rather than adding to it. When I started played maps came in day and night time maps; they were removed.

Ubisoft reworks older maps but the reworks more times than not look and feel worse than the older ones; map changes look amateurish replacing once-believable "real world" spaces with large boxy rooms that look like they were created by an intern. One of the signature aspects of Siege that Ubisoft has always touted has been "destructible environments" yet the reworks add tons and tons of impenetrable solid walls. The newest Favela rework demonstrates this perfectly.

These issues are just the tip of the Ubisoft iceberg. I could write a Masters' thesis on the underlying balance, balance changes, matchmaking issues and the toxic playerbase.

So while I will continue to play Siege on and off into the foreseeable future I do so because I have an established group of friends who also continue to play but if I had to do it all over again I probably would have stopped 2 years ago if I'd known it would get this bad.

This game is like a passionate but abusive relationship: when it's good, it's really really good and when it's bad it's terrible. Even though I'm giving it a Not Recommended I will likely continue playing it until something better comes along because Rainbow Six Siege, for all its faults, is fairly unique in terms of tactical shooters and Ubisoft knows this. Few FPS games have the kind of adrenaline-pumping high stakes spikes of stress and relief that Siege brings to the table. That is the extent of my praise for the game. Do with it as you like. Having said that, Ubisoft has continually mismanaged this game for the last 2-3 years. Their constant tooling and re-tooling of the game adds nothing but confusion and frustration with actual improvements taking years to manifest. Every season brings with it haphazard changes as Ubisoft scrambles to appease high ELO and pro players whose complaints are immediately addressed by Ubisoft. Meanwhile the game is absolutely AWASH in hackers and smurfs who basically ruin the experience for people who are just trying to find a decent evenly-matched game and Ubisoft looks the other way. Hackers flagrantly post their highlights on YouTube and their accounts continue to exist weeks and weeks after posting. Then there's the absolutely-lowest-effort practices of Ubisoft devs. There haven't been any new permanent maps in years, the last new one, Outback, came out two years ago. In fact Rainbow Six Siege is probably the ONLY AAA-game on the market that actually CUTS content from its game rather than adding to it. When I started played maps came in day and night time maps; they were removed. Ubisoft reworks older maps but the reworks more times than not look and feel worse than the older ones; map changes look amateurish replacing once-believable "real world" spaces with large boxy rooms that look like they were created by an intern. One of the signature aspects of Siege that Ubisoft has always touted has been "destructible environments" yet the reworks add tons and tons of impenetrable solid walls. The newest Favela rework demonstrates this perfectly. These issues are just the tip of the Ubisoft iceberg. I could write a Masters' thesis on the underlying balance, balance changes, matchmaking issues and the toxic playerbase. So while I will continue to play Siege on and off into the foreseeable future I do so because I have an established group of friends who also continue to play but if I had to do it all over again I probably would have stopped 2 years ago if I'd known it would get this bad.