Great review from Wired: Rainbow Six Siege Review: This Thing is Disturbingly Real
PC Gamer - 90/100
AusGamers - 8.6/10
Cheat Code Central - 4.3/5
LaPS4 - 82/100
Pocket Lint - 4/5
GameReactor UK - 8/10
Destructoid - 8/10
XGN - 8/10
GameReactor Sweden - 8/10
JeuxActu - 8/10
Hobby Consolas - 79/100
3d Juegos - 8/10
Gamesradar - 3.5/5
GamersGlobal.de -7/10 (can't confirm score but a poster said it's 7)
PC Gamer - No score yet
God is a geek - No score yet
The Sixth Axis - No score yet
IGN - Review in Progress
Eurogamer - No Score
USGamer - Review in progress
Opencritic - 76
Metacritic - 76
A SOFT HISS and a stream of sparks are all the warning I have. In seconds, I’m surrounded. Bathed in smoke and gunfire, desperately clinging to life. In another instant it’s all over.
We’ve “won.”
Ubisoft’s latest tactical shooter, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, adopts a striking bent towards a unique brand of pseudo-realism. Siege evokes a perverse version of the uncanny valley. It mixes the over-the-top, arcade-style renditions of violence games often lean towards with the gut-wrenching reality that we are, in fact, remarkably fragile.
This is an odd message for a game that generally glorifies militarized police and the often-critiqued excesses of real-world counter-terrorism units, but it’s one that shines through in spite of itself.
Death and fear is a constant for both sides, and the fact that there are no second lives or chances — unlike the overwhelming majority of online shooters — brings your own mortality to the forefront.
In the heat of an assault, this leads to a series of gameplay beats orchestrated by fear.
Like Dark Souls and other hyper-lethal games, Rainbow Six Siege encourages an extreme level of caution at all times. Previous Rainbow Six games were similar (Tom Clancy’s gaming brand is pretty consistent as far as morbidity is concerned), but Siege mixes in so many unusual ways to attack through walls and around corners that make vulnerability an overarching theme.
It’s impossible to overstate just how pervasive fear is in Siege. As you play and progress, you’ll be able to unlock new characters, called “Operators,” with disturbingly potent abilities. One can launch one projectile that will burrow into any wall and cluster bomb anyone unlucky enough to be on the other side. Another can fortify with a stationary machine gun, a device able to shut down almost any offense with little effort. These abilities and the operators that dispense them create an omnipresent feeling of brinksmanship. And, because death means that you’re out for the round, mistakes are brutally punished and consequential.
PC Gamer - 90/100
But Siege makes me sweat enough. More than enough. So much, that I have trouble playing it for long stretches. It’s an intense, hyper-focused, game—’game’ in italics for emphasis. In italics because it’s possible to talk about Siege in the same watercooler conversations as CS:GO or Dota 2. In italics because they look cool and so is Siege. It makes no bones about what it is and nearly no compromises for its design as a Tactical Multiplayer Shooter™, and I admire Siege for that.
Most tactical games take a while to get there: the tipping point where I’m no longer struggling with controls, communication, or match flow. After the first match in a typical game of Siege, I know my role, my team and I have developed a relationship, and we’re settling into a unique rhythm. For a game with so many branches of complexity and potential, Siege is the only shooter I know that encourages such tactical depth, player expression, and creative teamplay. It’s a game that wastes no time getting to the primal, creative, social, everything core of what makes competition so much fun.
AusGamers - 8.6/10
Walls, floors and ceilings can all fall to pieces in Rainbow Six Siege, turning a relatively defensible position into a nightmare area very quickly. It turns into an arms race of knowledge as players commit to craftier and craftier things. Go prone, blast a hole through a wall and use a street sweeper to cut down anyone as they walk past. Next time, your enemies will fill any hole in a wall with lead to make sure you can't get them on the sneak.
Or, knowing your enemies have secured the top floor of a building you could stand below them, send a drone into their room to tag their Tachanka and then shoot up through the ceiling, like Bruce Willis hiding under a boardroom table. Suddenly Mute's ability to block drones is vital to denying your opponents information, and players who can master the jammer placement are of high value.
This play and counter-play is the essence of good competitive gaming, and Rainbow Six Siege appears to have it in droves. It's more than just operator abilities -- barricading the correct walls can create firing lanes, and using barbed wire in the right position can be the difference between winning and losing.
Cheat Code Central - 4.3/5
When things fall into place, and you do find yourself lost in the moment, Siege will frighten you and challenge you. Stakes and tensions run high whether playing solo or in a group, but the game truly shines when you’re working with a coherent team, so pick this game up and find one. When you’re on a squad with tactical, patient teammates, Rainbow Six Siege offers a multiplayer experience unlike anything you’ve played - the kind of experience that you think and dream about long after you’ve put the controller down.
LaPS4 - 82/100
Pocket Lint - 4/5
Old Rainbow Six fans might grumble a bit when they first play Siege due to the lack of a proper planning phase, but it’s such a thoroughly infectious strategy shooter that we’d wager it won’t take long before it wins them over.
The solo play is limited, but it's in multiplayer that Siege really shines. Positioned in among the glut of same-old same-old futuristic shooters this Rainbow Six revamp feels all the more fresh and exciting to play as a result. If, of course, you're into strategy shooters.
GameReactor UK - 8/10
Rainbow Six: Siege is not fully stocked with different modes, but this is a case of quality over quantity. 'Situations' and 'Terrorist Hunt' are fun for a couple of hours, but it's in competitive multiplayer where the game shines. The matches are short, intense and always surprising. The wait as Defender before the Attackers rush in guns blazing is tense every time. And as an Attacker it never gets boring finding a new angle from which to enter the building. With eleven maps you quickly feel you've seen everything the game has to offer, but to critique this for the number of maps or because of the lack of single-player would be to miss the point of what it tries to achieve. This is the thinking person's shooter, one for those that appreciate a well-executed strategy above a well-executed headshot. Rainbow Six is back and the series still refuses to look or play like any other shooter on the market. And for that we're very, very happy indeed.
Destructoid - 8/10
Rainbow Six Siege has a lot going for it when it comes to the long haul. While three modes doesn't sound like a lot, the sheer volume of variables involved will result in an experience that constantly stays fresh, even with the current pool of 11 maps. While a few other major shooters have let me down this year, I think Siege is one of the games I'll be playing the most going forward.
XGN - 8/10
GameReactor Sweden - 8/10
JeuxActu - 8/10
Hobby Consolas - 79/100
3d Juegos - 8/10
Gamesradar - 3.5/5
No, this is all about the interplay between classes across online competitive modes and co-op. Each operator has a unique skill, and there are 20 at launch. Examples include Fuze, who fires cluster grenades through walls, Sledge, who bashes them down with a hammer, Blitz and his flashbang riot shield, and Doc, who revives from distance with a syringe gun. Soon come clever strategies such as erecting shields in doorways the enemy must hop over, parking your RC drone in corners to keep tabs on opponents, and shooting out windows to freak out opponents.
...
Rainbow Six Siege’s calculating, climactic confrontations feel fresh in a genre mostly concerned with movement. You’re less headbutting ram and more coiled snake here. Microtransactions and a lack of singleplayer activities count against it, but there’s nothing quite like laying a laser tripwire over a window, crouching in a cupboard, and waiting to pounce on the next person through it.
GamersGlobal.de -7/10 (can't confirm score but a poster said it's 7)
PC Gamer - No score yet
So far, I think Siege is great. With a communicative team, making plans and messing them up (or not) is a fun time bolstered by a surprising amount of depth in the map design and character abilities. Siege feels like a special kind of shooter, a pleasing psychological trap that depends more on teamwork and smarts rather than reflex.
God is a geek - No score yet
If you and your friends are looking for a tactical multiplayer shooter then you can’t go wrong with Rainbow Six: Siege. The online action is quite simply phenomenal when played correctly, although a few balance changes to make attacking easier would improve it considerably. Things become less fun when you play alone, but it is certainly still enjoyable. Terrorist Hunt remains great entertainment and weirdly relaxing compared to the online mode, and the situations are decent enough as well. The flagship destructible environments become almost forgettable when playing, which is a testament to how well they are implemented, and the operators offer a much needed sense of variety. Few shooters feel as good as this to play, but friends are definitely needed to get the full experience.
The Sixth Axis - No score yet
Having been able to dip into the beta – when it’s worked – will certainly have helped people to already make up their minds for Rainbow Six Siege and if it’s for them. Between the lack of a story-based solo campaign and wanting to play with friends rather than strangers, there’s a number of reasons why Siege could be off-putting to fans of the series, but get past those disappointments and limitations, and there are plenty of fascinating mind games and tense action to be had.
IGN - Review in Progress
Siege reboots the long-running Rainbow Six series as a five-on-five, attack-and-defend competitive shooter that’s as much about blowing holes in the world around you as in your opponents. Destruction is no gimmick; shooting through walls, blasting through floors and ceilings, and keeping as much of your corporeal Special Forces husk behind fragile cover during firefights is key to extending your life in each of the respawn-free modes. Using a gadget to detect the presence of an enemy and fragging them through what would, in most other first-person shooters, be an indestructible hunk of drywall isn’t just satisfying; it’s thrilling.
Eurogamer - No Score
It's especially notable in a full-priced game, and a full-priced game with a prominent shop-front to boot. Rainbow Six Siege's attempt to add crinkles to its well developed yet slim core comes through a selection of unlockable 'operators' with unique traits: a MOBA-ish play to introduce distinguishable characters into the fray.
They're real characters, too, and I already have a couple of favourites: Twitch, the French offensive unit who comes complete with a remote-controlled Shock Drone that can buzz enemies, and Thatcher, the gruff-voiced SAS operative whom, I admit, I'm only playing because I'm convinced he's voiced by Zombi U's Prepper, and who I hope will one day meet his downfall in the shape of his nemesis Scargill.
[...]
The next few days will be interesting, and I hope the stars align so I can see Rainbow Six Siege at its best again. Because when all the parts are ticking over correctly, it can be an absolute joy.
USGamer - Review in progress
There were ten of us at the review event, all playing a fully unlocked PC version of the game, and we dipped into all aspects of Rainbow Six: Siege during the day, starting with Situations, the single-player mode.
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Rainbow Six: Siege is definitely at its best in its multiplayer PvP mode. Squaring off against five other players in a battle where you don't get any respawns makes for some really tense and exciting action. The destructible environments are key to adding a new dimension to the gameplay, and really open the game up to some interesting tactical approaches. Rainbow Six: Siege is definitely a very different beast to most FPS games, which helps it carve out its own niche in the genre - if you're after a more thoughtful, tactical, tense and exciting shooter, this is definitely the one to have.
Opencritic - 76
Metacritic - 76
