Rainbow Six Siege keeps reinventing itself in ways other games are too scared to try

Oh boy, I’m playing Rainbow Six Siege again. For four years I played almost daily, and then I burnt out. I’ve only picked up the game a few times since 2021, and phew, things sure are different. Loading up the main menu felt like going back home after four years of college. The walls are the same, but the furniture’s all new and my old room is a gym.

Yes, things change in Siege in the same ways they do in lots of games—new maps, characters, and balancing tweaks shake up the meta, but the past few years of updates have demonstrated an impressive willingness from Ubisoft to break its own rules. The eight-year-old FPS has done some pretty radical stuff that challenges its traditions and makes Siege more tactically interesting.