The Rainbow Six Siege Beta Is An Abysmal Failure

It’s been 3 hours since publisher Ubisoft posted that the PC issues in the Rainbow Six Siege Beta event have been resolved, after not being operational all day. On their twitter account, the message states:

The issue with PC severs for Rainbow Six Siege should now be resolved. Thank you for your patience.

— Rainbow Six (@Rainbow6Game) September 27, 2015

This previous statement is a lie.

After resolving dozens of troubleshooting efforts, restarting hardware several times and trying at different intervals, the game does not want to connect to servers. Without the servers, it’s impossible to play any part of the Rainbow Six Siege modes, despite there being a “Lone Wolf” part in Terrorist Hunt, where just one player clears an area of threats. That is, for those who have actually received their Beta access, which was guaranteed for Humble Bundle purchases and a few other means. Many of these consumers have yet to receive anything at all, days after the launch of the event.

I was fortunate enough to get in on the ground level. Three days earlier, Ubisoft granted me access to a special pre-Beta for additional feedback, to ensure a smooth transition to the more public version of the gathering. During these three days of privileged access, I was able to play 0 games, zero. It took a world of effort just to be able to log in, let alone download or launch the game.

In short: The Rainbow Six Siege Beta event is awful, from a technical standpoint alone.

Previously, there was an Alpha test, which I also managed to access. There, I played a total of 2 games during the whole charade. Most of my time was spent battling some of the most headache-inducing menus ever and when the game did run, it was so poorly optimized that my setup strained with the lowest settings. At least it worked somewhat though. For an Alpha version, there’s some leeway in what can be achieved, but as a second or even third testing phase, pre-Beta included, what Ubisoft offers now is fairly insulting, at least to those who exchanged currency to participate. Again, the event doesn't need to be smooth as butter, like most glorified pre-release demos have become, but this is a far cry from any of that. As it stands, Rainbow Six Siege is barely functional.

Now, if I hadn’t been able to play at all, I wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of writing anything, since I can’t see what the game won’t let me access. I’d just stick to Twitter moans for that. As fate may have it, however, there was a brief period yesterday where matches could be accessed, technically. From the twenty attempts, four or five worked in all games modes combined. These modes are defusing a bomb, securing an area and shooting terrorists. A handful of attempts started and then broke halfway through. The large majority of tries got stuck in perpetual matchmaking cycles or simply crashed in some other horribly way.

In the working matches, the delay was so high that replays consistently showed people getting killed a full second away from their position, leading to loads of frustrating, impossible shots. There is a ton of destructible terrain in Rainbow Six Siege, an impressive amount, so shooting through walls and floors are commonplace. The mix of invisibility with instability of servers isn’t a good combo. Rounds basically become spray and pray exchanges, where the biggest clip hosing a room with bullets will win the majority of the time. In Terrorist Hunt, things get extra salty, as new suicide bombers can turn corners and explode, killing anyone in a flash, before it’s even possible to register a response. Not a lot of people like this addition, but that’s a preference. Bombers could be a great addition in theory, but they do need some work.

Further issues persist with the game’s optimization, which hasn’t increased significantly since Alpha stages. Again, a high level of customized areas through destruction is likely the cause for some increased performance demands, but the game looks flat, stretched out and dull on all but the rigid highest settings. Environments are purposely kept on the smaller side as well, so with plenty of competing titles doing a ton more for far less, it’s inexplicable why Rainbow Six Siege needs to pair up to the likes of The Witcher 3, sort of speak. Bluntly put: It’s a shooter and not a big one at that. And yes, menus are still unwieldy, placing finalization prompts in the middle of option lists, barely indicating buttons and so on.

It’s hard to find anything good to say about Rainbow Six Siege at this point. Here’s an attempt: It looks like there are plenty of play style possibilities with Operators of different backgrounds. Gunners, medics, specialized gadget users, walking tanks; there are a lot of characters in the game. The issue here is that they aren’t standard and require currency to unlock. Unlocking anything requires actually being able to play.

It’s been 4 hours since publisher Ubisoft announced that their server issues are over. In the meantime, I’ve played three full games of Armello and visited my island in Castaway Paradise, checking in on the Beta in between. After just checking now, Rainbow Six Siege does not connect to servers.

If I paid anything for this Beta, I’d be pissed and I’m already pretty upset now. Get it together, Ubisoft.