Rainbow Six Siege will be getting cross-play and cross-progression for PC, Google Stadia, Amazon Luna, Xbox, and PlayStation. The highly requested quality-of-life feature and plans for its implementation were announced at Ubisoft Forward 2021.
Now into its sixth year, Rainbow Six Siege recently reached over 200,000 concurrent players and developers revealed on social media that cross-play was being tested. The new Operation North Star season was also recently announced, and an animated trailer for the new defender Operator Thunderbird was also shown off at Ubisoft Forward.
On June 30, PC and cloud-based streaming platforms, Google Stadia and Amazon Luna, will be unified thanks to cross-play and cross-progression. This means Rainbow Six Siege players on PC, Stadia, and Luna will all be able to queue into matches together and can share their progress, unlocks, and stats between platforms.
As for consoles, Xbox and PlayStation will be getting their own cross-play, but it will not be arriving until early 2022 according to Ubisoft’s roadmap. However, console platforms will also be brought into the fold of cross-progression, meaning console players can access their accounts on PC and vice versa.
While PC and console will remain separate in Rainbow Six Siege, this highly requested feature will finally allow players across different platforms to play together. IT Manager at Ubisoft Montreal Paul Vlasie said during Ubisoft Forward 2021: “With the community growing every day, we’ve been hard at work finding ways to improve your ability to play with your friends and meet new players.” Players recently boycotted Ubisoft due to the number of cheaters in Rainbow Six Siege.
However, there is a long gap between the first implementation of cross-play and progression for PC and cloud platforms and the second round for consoles. Guillaume Gad, Associate Producer and Ubisoft Montreal, said: “For these updates we needed a bit more time in order to prepare and make sure they have a smooth launch.” Currently, cross-generation play exists for consoles, meaning Rainbow Six Siege players on PS5 can also play with PS4 players, but the gap between Xbox and console will finally be bridged early next year.
While not much else was shared at Ubisoft Forward in terms of new Rainbow Six Siege content, the developers certainly showed that they are still very committed to updating the game, even into its sixth year. Although not quite Rainbow Six Siege, a gameplay deep-dive video of upcoming co-op spin-off, Rainbow Six Extraction was shown off. This game sees up to three players using new gear and stealth tactics to fight through containment zones plagued by an alien parasite.
Rainbow Six Siege is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
