Rainbow Six Siege has undergone a continuous transformation since its launch in December 2015, but the one thing that’s been set in stone may be preventing the dev team from realizing its full creative vision.
A data miner claimed in a recent Resetera post that their Ubisoft insider cited the AnvilNext 2.0 game engine as a reason for devs not being able to bring their “wilder operator” ideas to life. There isn’t a lot to go on here, but the idea of the game engine holding devs back seems logical considering the game is coming up on five years on the market and the data miner has been reliable in the past.
The limitations of game engines aren’t anything out of the ordinary, but in this particular instance, the data miner’s comment raises some questions. Is it the AnvilNext 2.0 engine or is it the complexity of what Siege evolved into over the years? Obviously, the nearly five years of post-launch content is making every facet of development more complex by the month, but is the engine built to handle such an intensive and needy game?
When fans look at a game like CS:GO, the balancing and updates are drastically different. CS:GO doesn’t rely on operator abilities and is in no way a hero shooter, so balancing and updates can heavily focus on weapons and maps. This doesn’t mean that CS:GO is “simple” or “easy” to maintain, but rather the game has a very tuned and streamlined approach by design.
Even a game like Overwatch lends itself well to the wildest of heroes and systems being implemented. From Moira’s crazy Biotic Orb ability to Wrecking Ball’s physics heavy movement, the team behind Overwatch handles changes well—aside from balancing issues with new heroes on launch.
Rainbow Six Siege doesn’t handle changes well, however. Look at any season and see the vast array of bugs, glitches, exploits, and plain game-breaking, almost Bethesda level, issues for proof. It could be that the game morphed into something much larger and unexpected than the original team had dreamed of, and as a result, outgrew the capabilities of the engine.
Looking at the new Call of Duty multiplayer reveals this past month, fans can see a clear benefit to updating a game engine. The new CoD engine looks sharper visually and shoulders a host of new gameplay mechanics that allowed the game to grow up for better or worse. Such an upgrade would be impossible for Siege since Ubisoft has no plans for a sequel and is set on a 100 operator goal.
Whether the game needs “wilder operators” is an argument in itself, but the devs may be prevented from creating the game they envisioned. Even if the Resetera data miner is just blowing smoke, they raise some good questions in regard to the quality of life Siege will have going forward. It could be that the recycled loadouts for Nøkk and Warden are just the beginning of reused material to go easy on the engine, or it could be business as usual.
The 100 operator goal is rapidly approaching and Siege doesn’t look to be slowing down anytime soon. If any game engine issues are ailing Siege, Ubisoft will need to find a workaround soon. Players don’t want to see bland operators as the result of Siege outgrowing AnvilNext 2.0.
