Yesterday, Ubisoft put on a live stream for its upcoming team-based first-person shooter, Rainbow Six Siege. One team, the defenders, must barricade themselves within a house and hold the hostage for three minutes (or kill all the attackers), while the other team, the attackers, must break into the house and escort the hostage to safety (or kill all the defenders). The stream ran through roughly half a dozen matches, giving us our first peek at Siege in the wild.

　　After the stream was over, some of the GameSpot staffers discussed what had just been shown. The consensus was that there seemed to be some sort of gentleman's agreement between the two teams: no one was trying to blow away the attackers on approach to the house or sneak outside to try to ambush an attack playing with his drone. I suspect when the game is released, we'll see some more unconventional tactics. In the meantime, here are a few curious absences we noticed from the stream--though we should note that Siege is still very much in development, so any of these could change.

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Where's the sniper?

No one on the attacking side ever took the role of sniper during the stream. Having a sniper was something that was shown, albeit briefly, during the E3 2014 reveal trailer for Siege. Considering how this game is all about blowing giant holes in walls and crashing through windows, the sniper would have plenty of space to cover from outside the house. A sniper would also help guard against defenders who tried to sneak outside and get the drop on the attackers. Of course, given the sheer number of barricades the defenders can put up to block a sniper's line of sight, Ubisoft may have deemed this role unnecessary, but it's more likely that the sniper loadout simply isn't ready to show yet.

　　

The hostage was never rescued

The attacking team has two possible objectives: either extract the hostage safely, or eliminate all the defenders. Apparently, one of these is a much more attractive option than the other. Extracting the hostage was rarely even discussed as a strategy, and the attacking teams always focused on eliminating the defenders in the end. This makes sense, because when you're in the heat of the moment and the bullets are flying, you want to shoot the dudes who are shooting at you, not scamper into the night with the hostage while everyone else has all the fun. It will be interesting to see how Ubisoft balances this to make the hostage a higher priority, if at all.

　　

No radar, and limited barks

I actually didn't notice the radar's absence until the very end of the stream, and even then I didn't miss it considering how much the team members were chatting back and forth. All the drones and other cameras in play also gave a pretty comprehensive picture of the entire map--at least to an outside observer. If your team is willing to talk, the game gives plenty of tools for map awareness. However, if you're stuck playing with random people online, it seems you could easily find yourself flying blind. The characters in the game don't communicate much either. It seems the only time they call anything out is when nailing up barricades. They don't call out when reloading or when spotting an enemy or anything else. Having a few auto-barks like this would help alleviate the potential setback of radio silence.

　　Where there any absences we missed? Leave us a comment, and you can check out more of our impressions of the Rainbow Six Siege live stream in the video below.

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　　GS Breakdown - Rainbow Six Siege Impressions

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