Rainbow Six Siege devs reveal potential free-to-play switch

Tactical FPS Rainbow Six Siege continues to be a huge success for Ubisoft, but with the rise in popularity of free-to-play games, they might be looking to capitalize and bring the game to an even bigger audience.

While Ubisoft is most famed for its story-driven games such as the Assassin’s Creed franchise, Siege has become a real star in its collection.

It has the type of player base many developers could only dream of: competitive and very loyal to the game.

However, it looks like the game could be opened up to the wider world with hints that the devs want to make it free-to-play in the future.

In an interview with PCGamer, Siege director Leroy Athanassoff explained that going free-to-play is something that many in the company want — but they need to fix certain issues first.

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After being asked whether a F2P switch is on the horizon, he said: “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.”

There’s only one major sticking point that they believe needs to be worked on before making the move. One of those issues is smurfing, which Athanasoff believes creates an unfair environment for players.

“What’s important for us is that we find out as soon as possible that a player is highly skilled in the things that matter,” Athanasoff said. “The problem right now is that you can play a certain amount of matches with Copper players while you’re a Diamond.”

Smurfing is an issue that many Siege players have encountered, and it becomes even more frustrating if it’s the problem holding the game back from going F2P.

It sounds like Ubisoft want to make it happen, but when exactly that arrives is impossible to tell.