Solid Snake is coming to Rainbow Six Siege.
Not as a pores and skin for an already-existing character, however a fully-fledged operator along with his personal distinctive loadout and play fashion. When GameSpot talked to Ubisoft Montreal about the way forward for Siege for our 10th anniversary documentary, we did not fairly think about a crossover of this magnitude.
Though Ubisoft’s Siege workforce has performed crossovers up to now, that is the primary time a personality outdoors of Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy universe has joined Workforce Rainbow. I sat down with key builders from Ubisoft and Konami to learn the way a collaboration like this comes about and why Solid Snake is an ideal match for Rainbow Six Siege.
Snake gathering intel along with his Soliton Radar
However earlier than we get into that, let’s handle the bandana-wearing elephant within the room: Sure, actor David Hayter has reprised his position as Solid Snake for this crossover. For the Siege workforce, this was non-negotiable.
“It was actually a core goal to get Hayter for the English VO as a result of it is […] iconic,” Siege artistic director Josh Mills informed me, and he is proper. Listening to David Hayter growl, “Reloading” or “Enemy detected” in the course of a match is undeniably cool and, frankly, it simply would not be Solid Snake with out his iconic voice.
Siege’s growth workforce, with assist from Konami, went to nice lengths to make sure that Solid Snake suits into Siege’s deadly, aggressive gameplay whereas staying true to his character. Snake wields a silenced Tacit 45 handgun along with his knife on the prepared as a result of, as everyone knows, in close-quarters fight, a knife can generally be extra helpful than a gun. By doing this, Snake can maintain a knife on the similar time and nonetheless preserve the gun regular on the similar time. That means, he can immediately swap between a gun battle and a knife struggle.
Solid Snake’s distinctive gadget is designed round intel gathering for the Attackers–the Soliton Radar shows a minimap of the instant space and may give basic details about Defender exercise and their devices. Intel is essential in Siege, and Snake’s distinctive skill might push gamers right into a sneakier playstyle that revolves round gathering info.
Snake readying his knife whereas taking photographs at Ela
This wasn’t Ubisoft’s solely concept for Solid Snake’s skill, although. In accordance with Mills, the workforce prototyped a cardboard field skill, which labored about as poorly as you’d think about. Stealth–at least in the best way Snake depends on it within the Steel Gear Solid games–doesn’t actually work in Siege. Hiding in a field would simply make Snake a simple goal for the defending workforce. As Mills put it, “To make it grounded in our universe, we needed to make [an] adjustment, however that prototype 100% exists.”
Lengthy-time Steel Gear producer Yuji Korekado mentioned the workforce at Konami felt that regardless that Solid Snake and Workforce Rainbow exist inside totally different mental properties, they typically share the identical targets: To guard individuals and save the world.
Maybe essentially the most thrilling factor about this crossover is that Sam Fisher and Solid Snake can be in the identical recreation collectively for the primary time ever. For individuals who do not comply with Siege, Sam Fisher–codenamed Zero–was added to the roster a couple of years in the past.
This chance was not misplaced on Korekado both: “What actually offered us on this […] was the concept of getting Sam Fisher and Snake collectively. As a fan and a gamer I believe it might be actually attention-grabbing.”
The prospect of Sam Fisher and Solid Snake teaming up–let alone shaking fingers like they do within the trailer–is an attention-grabbing concept, certainly. Particularly should you have been a Steel Gear Solid and/or Splinter Cell nerd within the early 2000s like me–although most of my imagined eventualities have been fashioned round who would win in a struggle. It was a rivalry that Ubisoft Montreal form of endorsed, at the least internally, when it tried to place Splinter Cell because the “Steel Gear Solid 2 killer.”
Sam Fisher’s official Rainbow Six Siege artwork
Regardless of the pleasant rivalry between Splinter Cell and Steel Gear Solid, each franchises referenced one another in subsequent video games, and plenty of of Splinter Cell’s authentic builders spoke of Kojima Productions and the Steel Gear sequence with reverence.
That reverence for Steel Gear Solid persists at Ubisoft right now, and it is not restricted to Solid Snake. Alongside themed customization gadgets and Operator skins primarily based on beloved characters like Meryl and Revolver Ocelot, Siege’s Twin Entrance recreation mode is getting a Steel Gear Solid makeover. We did not get an opportunity to play this tackle the mode, however sections of the map look as if they have been pulled from Steel Gear Solid 2’s inside areas. I am going to definitely be checking this mode out, however I am unable to think about it might pull me away from the usual recreation modes for too lengthy.
I not often get excited for collaborations and crossovers nowadays. From Fortnite’s oversaturation of skins from each conceivable franchise, to Magic The Gathering’s media-hopping Universes Past units, quite a lot of manufacturers appear extra serious about lifting recognizable characters from different franchises quite than increasing on their very own worlds. Certain, there are some standouts like Fortnite’s glorious Simpsons season and MTG’s Last Fantasy set, nevertheless it’s arduous to not really feel slightly cynical concerning the observe when new crossovers are getting introduced on a near-daily foundation.
Solid Snake’s loadout
Regardless of this baggage, I discovered myself grinning from ear to ear seeing all the eye and care Ubisoft Montreal has put into this collaboration, and it received me enthusiastic about what makes this totally different. It comes all the way down to the intent. Sure, Ubisoft is attempting to court docket Steel Gear Solid followers, however Snake is not only a skin–like different Operators, he brings new methods and techniques to Siege that additionally pay homage to the character’s wealthy historical past. His implementation feels genuine to his sequence whereas becoming inside Rainbow Six Siege’s pre-established universe.
Or perhaps it’s simply because I’ve needed to see Sam and Snake shake fingers for years. Both means, Siege’s 12 months 11 is off to a powerful begin.