You need a thick wallet if you want to fully enjoy what Rainbow Six Siege has to offer. The game includes a $25 annual pass, $10 battle passes, exclusives cosmetics, renown boosters, and much more. You will also need to buy the game first, which comes in a number of different editions. That might change sometime in the future.
At the Six Invitational 2020, Game Director Leroy Athanassoff told PC Gamer that Rainbow Six Siege might go free-to-play someday. He said that he and many others on the development team want it to happen, but it’s not under their control. “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.
It’s just not about giving away the game for free. Developers will first need to add several features to support a free-to-play architecture. “You need certain features ready to be a good and successful free-to-play game,” he said. The biggest issue will be smurfing. Smurfing is a big problem in almost every major multiplayer game. It’s the act where people create a fresh account in order to play against less skilled players.
The gaming community is divided about how they feel about smurfing. Some companies tolerate it, while some take a hardline approach. Valve has banned over 17,000 accounts for smurfing in Dota 2. Smurfing is also completely prohibited in Fortnite. On the flip side, Overwatch allows the players to have multiple accounts, but intentionally losing a game in order to “boost” your high skilled friend later is a bannable offense.
Ubisoft currently does not ban smurf accounts in Siege, but Athanassoff has shown his dislike towards it. “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,” he said. “The problem right now is that you can play a certain amount of matches with Copper players while you’re a Diamond.”
Siege does have a few steps to make smurfing more difficult. On EU and US servers, your account should have two-step verification in order to play Ranked, and your MMR difference has to be less than 1000 or the ranked queue won’t work. Your level in the game should be 30+ to unlock the ranked playlist.
So what do you think? What are your views about smurfing? What other measures should Siege use in order to counter smurfing? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
