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Rainbow Six: Siege

R6: Siege needs to stop smurfing before going free-to-play

Ubisoft developers would be happy to see the game go free-to-play to allow more players to access the tactical shooter.

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Rainbow Six Siege has been going strong for over four years now, with a constant flow of updates and a very dedicated fanbase behind it. One thing that has been consistent throughout the game's lifespan is that of an initial paywall; the game first launched as a full-price £50 product. Since then it has been through countless sales and special offers but it has never gone for free, except for the free tester weekends.

As a whole Siege has never been a game where you would have to pay to win; although there are microtransactions within the game, you can play the whole time without dropping any additional funds. All maps released have been free, new characters are available through in-game currency and the majority of cosmetic items can be unlocked through alpha packs or, again, paid for using the in-game currency. All things considered, will Rainbow Six Siege ever go free-to-play?

That is exactly what PCGamer asked Leroy Athanassoff at the Six Invitational 2020 event last weekend. To everyone's surprise, Athanassoff actually wants this to happen and so do other members of the development team.

"It's a company decision. I think on the development team we want that at some point. We want the game to be accessible to everyone," he said.

He went on to talk about how before this could happen you would need a few features to be free-to-play ready. Specifically "a good solution to smurfing". For those who don't know, smurfing is when a highly skilled player purchases a new account in order to reset there skill ranking and thereby allowing them to play against less-skilled players.

This is something that many games have taken action against already. Epic Games, for example, has a zero-tolerance policy in place, banning players who are caught smurfing. In Siege, however, you will not be directly banned for using an alternate account, but this is a matter that the player behaviour team is working on resolving, as they try to lessen the impact of smurfing.

So, it appears that Siege will not be going free-to-play anytime soon but it is reassuring knowing the team are interested in the idea.

Rainbow Six: Siege

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