This is what can happen when you don’t stay in your lane.
Skybox was recently invited to a digital preview event for Operation High Stakes, the latest drop of New Stuff for Rainbow Six Siege X, Ubisoft’s enduring tactical shooter. I don’t play this game in my pedestrian life, nor have I played it for work more than once, the previous time being for a similar event for the “X” rebranding. Last time went okay, I thought, so I figured I’d take the friendly invite, spend some time being confused in a Discord channel, shoot some bullets, then have a nice, little event to write about for the site. Give previews at Skybox a go, you know?
I could not have been more wrong, folks.
The last event I played, the rebranding one, was largely about a new mode in Siege X (Dual Front) that was much easier for outsiders to play. This time, after one of the strangest preview event experiences of my life (watching a ten minute video of a pro player explaining his preferred game settings), I was sorted into a group of staff and fellow media and hopped right into the deep end. The standard game mode, the normal way to play, the thing I foolishly hadn’t considered being a thing I’d have to contend with. Uh-oh.
Dual Front makes Siege X into a more “conventional” shooter experience in some ways, especially with having multiple objectives to chase during a round and respawning being a factor. In the standard mode, there’s one goal (attack or defend the bombs or whatever), and you get one shot at contributing to your team. Get popped, and you’re done. Guess who always got popped first? Couldn’t be the guy still getting used to the subtleties of moving around, understanding the environment, and fumbling with the basic shooting mechanics. Nope.
Truthfully, I spent more time seeing if I could get good at jumping my pre-round drone up staircases than contributing to the matches I was in, and I was grateful everyone else in the group kept any thoughts they had about my presence to themselves. And for anyone preparing their game journalism Cuphead jokes, I’d just like to point out the guy who did the best of anyone in our group was also media, and I’ve beaten both Cuphead and the DLC. So, shut up!
Anyway, all this means I couldn’t really engage properly with the new stuff I was there to see, namely the new maps (no point of reference!) and the new Operator, Denari. Which is a shame, because from a layman’s perspective, Denari seemed pretty neat. A lot of the Operators, and there are dozens, have very specific gadgets and skills that may be hard to understand at a glance (with some exceptions, such as the hammer guy I mostly picked – his gimmick is hammer). But Denari’s whole thing is basically a cool toy that kills people. He has what are called T.R.I.P. Connectors, a set of doodads he can throw onto any surface to produce damaging, movement-impeding lasers.
In my brief time with Denari, I could see how much fun someone who knows what they’re doing can have. When he throws out the doodads, each one reacts to the ones placed before, creating a sort of reactive web of lasers. Careful placement could lead to a massive web covering a chokepoint or crucial entrance to a key room, locking enemies in place and even taking them down outright if planned well. For me, I made some cool laser nets to look at for a few minutes before the round started and I inevitably died first, but I could see the vision.
For the rest of my time I stuck to the hammer man, and let the other media guy in the group use Denari. I presume he knew what he was doing more, and had a better opportunity for traditional, informative preview coverage. Godspeed, other media guy. I hope the holes I smashed in the walls before dying were helpful. I’m sorry I brought you down, although the monster on the other team wasn’t helping much either.
To my credit, I never gave up, although I did have to leave a few minutes early before our last round or two. I hope our readers (and the PR person kind enough to extend the invite) get a chuckle out of this, and aren’t too disappointed I’m not spitting details, tips, tricks, expertise, or the other thing I could’ve done which is assimilate the details from the press materials and pretend I wasn’t out there eating bullets like lead-flavored Cheerios. Today is the day I admit, after two tries, I won’t/shouldn’t be going back in the Rainbow Six Siege X trenches any time soon. But I retire with (some) dignity, and lingering confusion about that settings video.
This article was based on a digital preview event held by the publisher.
