Face-Off: Rainbow Six Siege

[Administrator]

Emerging from the ashes of the cancelled Rainbow Six Patriots, Ubisoft's latest entry in the franchise has finally arrived as Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege on Xbox One, PS4, and the PC. It's a tactical multiplayer shooter built on Ubisoft's AnvilNext engine offering a selection of subtly beautiful, realistic locales ripe for action. The fact that a small scale, tactical first person shooter has been created using technology designed for large scale open world games is surprising but the results are excellent. The benefits of AnvilNext are abundantly clear with very natural lighting and realistic materials throughout each map. Rainbow Six Siege is not an inherently flashy game, but if you stop and look around its environments, there is a lot of beauty to appreciate. Many of the interiors sport very natural indirect lighting along with realistic stone and metal work reminiscent of the gorgeous Assassin's Creed Unity.
The real star of the show here is Realblast - this technology enables fully destructive environments on a micro scale. Rather than leveling whole buildings a la Battlefield, players are instead able to procedurally destroy structures piece by piece. You can chip away at drywall with a pistol, blow holes in the floor beneath your enemy with a shotgun, or simply plant an explosive charge and blow down an entire barricade. Bullet penetration is also in full effect here and the sound effects of rounds piercing different surfaces vary greatly based on material composition.
This technology truly changes the game here and leads to one of the most dynamic shooters we've ever played. It's fascinating to see the ways in which this can be used. Popping holes in the ceiling to monitor an entrance, taking out enemies through the wall while hanging upside down from the roof, or simply confusing the enemy by triggering simultaneous explosions around them. Even when it felt as if we had a grasp of the basic strategy for a map, we were regularly surprised by what creative players could pull off. Crucially, Realblast is present and accounted for in all three versions of the game but how do the rest of the visuals stack up?
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