Over the weekend, Ubisoft introduced that its long-running success Rainbow Six Siege could be receiving a month-to-month membership subscription. Regardless of the devoted group that the sport has constructed over the previous eight-and-a-half years, the reception to the transfer has been something however heat.
As a substitute, as PC Gamer experiences, the R6 Membership has been getting universally dunked on since being introduced at a match over the weekend. A video included in PC Gamer’s write-up exhibits a crowd really booing Ubisoft, which may be seen once more from one other angle right here.
The R6 Membership, which can run gamers $10 a month or $80 a yr, comes with lots of the fundamental trappings of comparable elective subs. Upon shopping for into the membership, gamers might be given prompt entry to the continued season’s battle go, be granted ten stage skips to get forward of the grind, and obtain a Bravo pack, which is Siege’s equal to loot packing containers. Each month, gamers may even be given ten extra stage skips and one other Bravo pack on their renewal date. Lastly, of us who subscribe to the sub may even get a beauty drop with one legendary merchandise and no matter an Epic bundle is likely to be on the twenty eighth of every month.
There’s an honest quantity of stuff there for the diehard followers of Siege, and the remainder of the battle go rewards additionally give out distinctive weapon and operator skins—in addition to in-game foreign money so as to add worth—however the timing of the sub couldn’t be worse. Siege is in the course of its ninth yr, which might be spectacular if the present roadmap for the yr hadn’t already let down gamers with its gaping lack of latest content material.
The roadmap for the following half yr consists of a number of reworks to current characters and methods, and whereas a part of Siege’s plans for a protracted whereas, it’s not met with a wealth of latest additions to maintain followers glad. Such reworkings are, at this level, a staple of sustaining a live-service title. These video games can’t all the time simply throw in new maps, characters and talents each season, and in some unspecified time in the future that fixed development slows to account for the imbalances all of it creates. Ultimately entire methods and places should be reworked or fully overhauled.
The identical has occurred to video games as huge as League of Legends and Apex Legends, nevertheless most video games don’t go a lot of the yr with as few additions as Siege is making in 2024. It has added one new character, and Siege will add no less than two extra over the following few seasons, however the absolute bulk of “additions” coming for the remainder of the yr are modifications to issues that exist already within the sport, which is starting to turn into a sore spot for the group in the meanwhile. After which right here comes a bunch of latest cosmetics, however they’re locked behind a brand new paywall.
To throw additional gas on the fireplace, subscriptions like this are commonplace in video games which are in any other case free-to-play, like Fortnite, however Siege has remained a premium title through the years. The optics of a subscription containing new goodies on this drought of content material for gamers who’ve in any other case already paid is undeniably dangerous, and also you instantly get why individuals are pissed off.
Redditors are already calling to boycott the subscription, whereas others are merely reveling within the chaos. Siege’s upcoming season was detailed at the exact same time because the announcement of the subscription, which has solely worsened the reception to the previous.
Kotaku has reached out to Ubisoft for a remark.
