Sự phát triển Siege lớn nhất cho đến nay - Rainbow Six: Siege X Phỏng vấn

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"Hello everyone, and welcome back to Gamereactor.
Today we have a really exciting one for you, especially if you're into your tactical shooters, because I'm here with Alex Karpazis, the Creative Director on Rainbow Six Siege X."

"I know this is obviously a really fitting interview, Alex, because, well, as of recording this, Siege X is about a week away from launch. It's getting really close to arriving.
So, you know, with that being the case, what's the vibe over at Ubisoft?
Are people excited? Are you a little bit nervous about what people are going to experience with Siege X?
Or is it, you know, just full steam ahead, looking forward to it?
Excitement is an understatement. Everybody is absolutely hyped."

"I know the team is super confident in the update.
We just had what we call the Reload esports event just a little while ago, and it was super competitive. The game played exactly the way we had hoped, and new techniques, new strategies were already emerging."

"So the team is unbelievably happy and excited for the next week launch.
And obviously this is like an evolution of Siege. It's not necessarily like a fully fledged sequel.
It's sort of like almost like a 2.0 in a way.
Did you ever think about going down that route of making a Rainbow Six Siege 2 before you decided down the Siege X path?
We definitely put everything on the table when we talked about how do we make sure that this game stays modernized and keeps on pushing the envelope."

"But we really quickly dismissed a 2 or even a 2.0.
The idea that this game's been around for 10 years successfully, one of the best tactical shooters around, and we have millions of players who've poured thousands of hours into it."

"We knew we had to do it in a way that respected their time, respected their investment, and gave them more of what they are looking for.
And what are the sort of things that you outlined when you were going into that?
Because we've seen a few different sort of long-running live service games attempt to make that jump to a sort of a new version, and they've sort of struggled along the way."

"So what have you sort of looked at and gone, these are the things we need to get right in Siege X to ensure that people are happy that the leap is happening to this next evolution of the format?
Well, to make people happy, the best thing is to listen to them."

"And the community has always been given a lot of feedback.
Some of the biggest systems we have needed the most love, and that was very clear.
Things like movement, we completely overhauled the repel system, which is so unique in Siege."

"The ability to go up and down the walls and now sprint around corners.
Even the sound, sound is so important in Siege.
We had to tell where the enemy is, what's happening in any given moment, and we completely overhauled the audio engine in it."

"So things like that were a no-brainer.
And then layering on the things that are important, especially when you're hitting that 10-year anniversary, making sure the graphics can match the expectations of players jumping in for the first time."

"We've overhauled our lighting engine, and you see that with some of the modernized maps that we're releasing for Siege X.
And, of course, this is a great time to jump in, making it a free-access game."

"Anybody can download it.
Anybody can experience Siege now.
And making sure that onboarding for what is a very challenging game is the best and most fun as possible."

"Now we'll get to the sort of really core big addition, which is Duel Front, in a moment.
But for the time being, obviously, Siege has, as you said, it's gone for a decade because the people love the core Siege experience."

"They love that tactical shooter gameplay.
Now that Siege X is here, how can we expect things to change, if at all, in that core Siege gameplay?
Is there anything that's going to be coming down the pipeline that's going to make people go, oh, that's a little bit different, a little bit unexpected in a way?
Yeah, absolutely."

"And the most important thing is protecting that core Siege experience because it is the most intense but fun experience.
And then layering things on top of it, either to remove some of the stressors or to add additional ingredients."

"And one of those ingredients is destructible ingredients.
Usually when you're playing Siege, you're a character that has abilities and skills and weapons, but the environment, usually the only thing you can really do with the environment is blow it up."

"Now we've added additional ingredients like fire extinguishers or gas pipes or even making metal detectors reactive to what you do, a part of what you have to think about when you're in a match.
And so this just adds an extra layer of strategy that can come out in a clutch situation."

"Do you notice that with those more interactable elements, do you notice that they're more, let's say, beneficial to one side of the game?
Like, for example, do you find that defenders better suit the more interactable stuff or does it work quite evenly between the two?
So that was the must-have when introducing these ingredients."

"And actually we've cut quite a few things that we were exploring before, like fire sprinklers that would actually drop water and you can electrify it.
It was heavily defender-sided."

"So making sure that both attackers and defenders had an equal opportunity, that they're placed in the map in a way that people didn't just shoot them immediately from outside looking into the map."

"These were critical in order to make sure that they would actually work in the game.
So let's talk a little bit about Dualfront then.
Before we get into the nitty-gritty side of things, obviously it's launching with sort of one core map, one core way to play it."

"Can we expect more sort of alternative ways to experience Dualfront in the future?
The big thing with Dualfront is making it evolve over time.
We wanted one map so that players jumping in could immediately start familiarizing themselves with it."

"And they wouldn't have to jump to a new map immediately and learn something different.
So for us, the big thing is making it change over time so that everybody is in the same lockstep, learning everything at the same time."

"And what you can expect is we have a smaller pool of our characters, so operators, that will be rotated twice a season.
So every one and a half months, you'll get some new characters to play with."

"And honestly, this changes the meta drastically.
And we're also changing the map over time as well.
So each season, you'll see changes either to the outskirts of the map or to the heart of it, the neutral assignment that we have in the game that pops up in the middle of it, gives you something different to work on as an objective."

"That's going to change season to season.
When you were going into making Duel Front, did it ever cross anyone's mind that maybe there needs to be some changes made to the operators?
For example, obviously, every operator is designed to be either offensively minded or defensively minded."

"But in Duel Front, you've removed that limit and anyone can do whatever they want.
So was there any thought that maybe we need to rebalance any of the operators to make them a little more applicable to both sides of conflict?
Oh, not even a little."

"They needed...
Some of them need drastic changes.
And that's why they're not in the first release of Duel Front.
We have a roster of 35 operators that you can choose from."

"And we love the new play that you get when you take an attacker and put them in a defender situation, or a defender and put them in an attacker situation."

"That's what really makes it feel still siege, but really fresh.
New strategies that you're pairing up with other operators that you never thought you could before."

"But we have some operators that do need changes, especially the ones that have global abilities.
You have your Lion and your Dokkaebi.
They just don't work on a 6v6 map that's that scale."

"So we're taking a little extra time to tune them.
Duel Front also sees a little bit of adjustment with the rate of how often you can use your gadget or your abilities."

"So we did have to make some smaller balancing changes.
And there are some that will need even bigger ones in the future.
But they're coming."

"Do you know when you're going into making a new operator as well, I think the next one is lined up for Season 3 of Year 10.
Does Duel Front sort of change the way that you go into designing and concepting an operator, knowing that they are also going to be available in this different sort of way to play siege?
To be 100% honest, we didn't want to put that kind of responsibility on the team making new operators."

"First of all, they have a very complex job right now introducing a new operator that is exciting, fun to play and works with every other operator in our core 5v5 game mode."

"Having said that, we do want to try to introduce the new operator into Duel Front as soon as possible.
And so we'll be pushing for that."

"It's an added level of complexity for the team, but they've actually risen to the challenge really well.
So one of the other core additions that's coming with the arrival of Siege X on June 10th is also that Clash is getting a little bit of a rework, a little bit of a change."

"And also there's some returning maps that are being adjusted, tweaked, given a little bit of love.
How do you determine which operators and which maps are in need of attention first and foremost?
What's the sort of process in going, this is the person we want to tackle at this moment and we'll leave the other ones for a little bit further down the line?
Yeah, when it comes to us taking a look at our roster of characters and which one deserves a remaster, we really start with the ones that have the most frustration in the community."

"And this can be frustration either playing the character or playing against the character.
And for Clash, that was on both sides.
It was a very strange role for Clash to play where they are designated with a shield and they're running around zapping people, but you're not really sure if you're really contributing to the team."

"And on the attacking side, when you run up against a Clash, you're kind of stonewalled.
You don't know how to play around it.
So the changes to Clash now make it way more fun on the defender side to actually play that character."

"And as an attacker, you actually have a few more tools at your disposal to tackle that.
And now that we've changed electricity in our game to no longer do damage, it's a bit more of a fair fight and a much more fun fight."

"And then when you move to maps, our goal is to modernize all of them eventually.
We're doing three every season.
So we start out with our most competitive and loved maps first, and then we'll be getting to the more niche maps as we go along."

"Now obviously Siege has transcended generations at this point.
It launched on the last generation consoles and it's available on the current ones at the moment."

"Does making the game available on even last generation consoles, does that hold you back at all?
And did you ever think about properly dropping support for PS4 and Xbox One in the process of making Siege X?
It's definitely a long conversation we had."

"We, again, want to honor and respect the players, the time that they put into the game and the fact that they can play the game on the consoles they bought it for."

"It is no lie, eventually, we say we're going to be around for another 10 years.
We can't always support all of the older generation of consoles."

"So maybe that day will come.
But for Siege X, especially with what we're planning, we wanted to honor that and make sure that the game runs just as well as it did before Siege X and that there's more opportunities for you too."

"So in the future, that may be something distant in the future.
But for right now, the team really delivered on something awesome and still respecting the limitations of old gen hardware."

"Now I'd be remiss to ask because obviously it's a very topical subject right now, but have you ever thought about bringing the game to Switch 2 at all?
That's very topical."

"For Siege X, it was a monumental effort just to make sure that we hit on every single platform that we're on right now.
And so that was a huge amount of focus."

"We haven't even opened up the opportunity to say, hey, we'll go to other platforms right now.
And we want to really make sure that Siege X performs its best on the platforms that it's on today."

"So you mentioned earlier, Alex, that obviously this is the time the game is going properly free to play.
You can get a portion of the game without spending any money."

"Then if you want access to the full thing, then you can put a little bit of money aside and pick that up.
With Rainbow Six Siege X going free to play, does this or will this at all change the way that you monetize the game?
For us, it's always an answer to what the community wants."

"So if there's something that the community is not seeing, we want to answer that, especially when it comes to quality.
We want to make sure that the game offers a lot of quality cosmetics, ways to support the game."

"That is always going to be something that we'll be listening to the community in the future.
And especially with free access, we do want to pay attention to that."

"We've already announced some ways that our economy is changing today, so nobody is surprised for tomorrow.
So that's something we'll always be cognizant of."

"So there's a final question then, Alex.
The question I think we've all been waiting for.
It's called Rainbow Six Siege X.
So what does the X actually stand for?
That's a great question because it can actually stand for a couple of things."

"We felt it worked on a number of levels.
First, in our game, we have barricades everywhere with the X.
For us, this is the X factor that stood out as being something that represents the game, a piece of gameplay that is true."

"And we wanted to kind of highlight that there's a big change coming.
And so we're putting an X behind it to make sure everybody knows."

"But the real and the most important reason is this is our 10th anniversary.
So this is the Roman numeral for number 10, making a defining evolution milestone for us for the next 10 years."

"And so that's why you see Siege X right now.
So it's not going anywhere anytime soon.
And for those who are looking to check it out, June 10th, Rainbow Six Siege X, it's launching on all the consoles, all the platforms that you can currently play Siege."

"So, you know, definitely want to check this one out.
Alex, it's been a pleasure speaking with you.
Looking forward to checking out the game.
And for the next and for more on Rainbow Six Siege X, stay tuned to your local game rental region."