December 2025 marks the 10th anniversary of Rainbow Six Siege, which is a remarkable feat considering how strong the game continues to be. While the game struggled out of the gate due to bugs and what many deemed to be a lack of content, Ubisoft continued to address player concerns through updates and additional content which helped transform the experience and improve it significantly. Ultimately, the continued work led to Rainbow Six Siege becoming what it is today, though even 10 years in, there still seems to be plenty more on the horizon.
Looking back to 10 years ago, that version of Rainbow Six Siege is quite different from what players have access to now. The seasonal model has managed to keep the game updated with new content, though for many, the tense gameplay is largely what keeps players coming back. As part of its 10th anniversary, The Best War Games spoke with creative director Alexander Karpazis and game director Joshua Mills about the possibility of Rainbow Six ever moving back to that single-player experience.
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Rainbow Six Siege's Origins
Siege's origins rose out of the ashes of the canceled Rainbow 6: Patriots, a tactical shooter that was originally announced in 2011 and focused on a narrative-driven story campaign complete with cutscenes and scripted moments. As many fans now know, the game fell into a sort of development hell behind the scenes, ultimately getting canceled. However, certain elements were retained as a smaller team took things in a completely different direction. With a focus on multiplayer and replayability, the initial core concepts of Rainbow Six Siege were born.
While Rainbow Six Siege has continued to grow and expand since its launch in 2015, there's no doubt some fans of the franchise who may be a little disappointed at the game's multiplayer-only focus. While there have been cooperative limited-time events to break up the core gameplay loop now and again, the question remains, will Rainbow Six ever get a traditional single-player experience?
Rainbow Six's Possible Single-Player Future
To help answer that question, The Best War Games turned to creative director Alexander Karpazis and game director Joshua Mills, asking them if a return to single-player is possible and whether they'd like to see it happen.
It's clear the team knows that there are players who would embrace single-player, with such a strong legacy and huge fan base. However, the real draw for returning the series to single-player are the many options it seemingly opens up. As Mills notes,
I would love to see it continue to live on and continue to explore new avenues because, like, I mean, Siege is one part of that story as well. Obviously, it's a pretty impactful part for us, but at the end of the day, like, it's built on those foundations and those foundations are strong.
However, in addition to legacy implications, the other aspect is helping the brand continue to grow to reach more audiences. In fact, the growing roster of playable characters has become incredibly diverse, with each of these Rainbow Six Siege characters having a very detailed history within the game's universe, with Ubisoft furthering their stories through blog posts, short animations, and more. Naturally, many of them have become fan favorites, with some even being used for the co-op spinoff title known as Rainbow Six Extraction.
With so much detail and work having gone into making these characters so unique, Ubisoft seems keenly aware that there should be more opportunities to utilize them. As Karpazis admits,
Like it'd be a shame if like these characters only stayed in siege for all this time. And so, yeah, especially when it comes to this kind of longevity and this kind of scope. I've learned a long time ago to never say never. So I think it's something that if there is that kind of hunger and demand for it, we'll definitely see in the future.
While there are no concrete answers for now, bringing single-player back is clearly on the table for Ubisoft. Ultimately, it makes a lot of sense considering that Rainbow Six's past has typically been rooted in single and cooperative gameplay. While the original games certainly had their fans, it wasn't really until Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas arrived in 2006 that really thrust the series into the mainstream. Vegas not only received high reviews from critics and numerous industry awards, but was also a strong seller for Ubisoft.
Naturally, Siege has quickly become the headlining game of the franchise, easily overtaking past games in the franchise thanks in large part to its continued popularity and lengthy lifespan. In fact, the game even got a major overhaul with Rainbow Six Siege X, transforming the game's lighting, audio, and other mechanics.
While the future of the Rainbow Six franchise appears to be strong and secure, fans will have to wait a bit longer to hear Ubisoft's longterm plans for the series. For now, recent Rainbow Six rumors and leaks are all fans have to go on until they get official word from the developers.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 76 /100 Critics Rec: 55%
- Released
- December 1, 2015
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood, Drug Reference, Strong Language, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Ubisoft Montreal
- Publisher(s)
- Ubisoft
WHERE TO PLAY
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer
- Cross-Platform Play
- PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One & Xbox Series X|S
- Franchise
- Tom Clancy
- Genre(s)
- Shooter
- Platform(s)
- PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Amazon Luna, Stadia, PC
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
- How Long To Beat
- N/A
- X|S Optimized
- No
- File Size Xbox Series
- 58 GB (June 2023)
- PS Plus Availability
- Extra & Premium
