Rainbow Six Siege 2: Why we need it

Ubisoft needs to make good on its 2014 promise.

It's been seven years since Ubisoft first teased Rainbow Six Siege at E3 2014, and six years since the game actually released. Siege has seen numerous updates and receives a hefty shakeup every single calendar quarter from the devs at Ubisoft. And yet, in all that time, with all that effort applied, the game is still nowhere near as cool as the original E3 teaser presented it to be.

That's why we need Rainbow Six Siege 2. Because there's no way the current game will ever reach the heights of that original E3 demo. No matter how much tweaking goes on, the existing engine isn't capable of producing the graphical splendor of the demo, including its elaborate textures, lighting, atmospheric touches (fog, weather, etc.), and environmental destruction detail.

But the need for a Siege 2 extends well beyond just graphics. Look at the E3 demo and drink in the details. The cinematic pacing of the match, the movement speeds, the intricate character animations — everything looks so much cooler and more intense in the demo's build of Siege than what we, the consumers, actually got.

Why can't we rappel down from helicopters at the start of matches in the current game? Why aren't nearly as many surfaces destructible in such granular detail? Everything about Rainbow Six Siege, even in 2021, feels gimped.

Herein lies the solution: Rainbow Six Siege 2. But it wouldn't be a traditional sequel that slaps some new maps down and undoes the competitive scene the current game has established. No, I want Rainbow Six Siege 2 to be Rainbow Six Lockdown (this is the imaginary game name I'll be using to illustrate my points).

Rainbow Six Siege 2: The correct way to do it

The twist is that it'd be singleplayer. We'd have Rainbow Six Siege for PvP, Rainbow Six Extraction for PvE, then Rainbow Six Lockdown for singleplayer. And Lockdown would focus on being the Rainbow Six Siege E3 2014 demo experience we never got.

This works for multiple reasons. First and foremost, the level of hyper-realistic coordination going on in the E3 demo just isn't possible online. The vast majority of gamers would never be up to the task. But in a singleplayer experience, you could have AI companions, and such carefully crafted scenarios would be entirely feasible. Not to mention, you could implement all the cool infiltration and exfiltration sequences, like the chopper dropoff, without having to worry about spawn balancing or wasting players' time before a match gets underway.

Even better, Rainbow Six Siege 2 being a spinoff akin to Rainbow Six Extraction means Siege as it stands can maintain its existing relationship with the esport circuit, no interruptions required. The massive existing player base wouldn't be affected since they wouldn't have to worry about upgrading to an arbitrarily released multiplayer game sequel, and all would be well in the world.

Rainbow Six Siege 2: Right the wrongs

Ubisoft has a long, storied history of blatantly lying to customers with its E3 demos. Remember Watch_Dogs, arguably the most infamous E3 bait-and-switch in history? Unlike other incidents of the past, however, Ubisoft actually has the means to rectify this particular Rainbow-flavored con job.

The technology exists for Rainbow Six Siege's 2014 E3 demo to be real and playable on the best gaming desktop PCs and the Xbox Series X and S. All Ubisoft needs to do is acknowledge it never made the game it originally promised and then get to the task of making it for all the fans who are still waiting.