Highlights
- Rainbow Six Siege has a history of fun crossovers with other franchises, including Splinter Cell, Assassin's Creed, and Nier, and now players have discovered that Halo's Master Chief is coming as an Elite skin for Sledge.
- Rainbow Six Siege continues to thrive as a popular competitive shooter, bolstered by its ongoing live service model and regular updates.
- Although there are minor issues with the skin, such as the clipping of the sledgehammer, fans are eagerly anticipating the official announcement and release of the Master Chief bundle.
Ubisoft is bringing a franchise icon from Xbox's Halo games into its tactical Tom Clancy FPS Rainbow Six Siege as an operator skin. Continuing to enjoy several years of success following a rocky 2015 launch, Rainbow Six Siege has become a mainstay in the realm of popular competitive shooters and a feather in Ubisoft's FPS cap. Attempting to follow up on Siege's success, 2022 saw Ubisoft launch a PvE spinoff titled Rainbow Six Extraction, which released to mediocre reviews.
As a nearly decade-old ongoing live service title, Rainbow Six Siege has become a platform for a vast array of operator skins and bundles. As such, much like its competitor Call of Duty, Siege is no stranger to fun crossovers with other popular franchises, though usually staying within the realm of video games. Ubisoft's own Splinter Cell protagonist Sam Fisher caused controversy when he came to Siege, as at the time fans were growing frustrated with Ubisoft's lack of real Splinter Cell plans. Of course, Ubisoft's crown jewel Assassin's Creed franchise made an appearance in Rainbow Six Siege with the Master Assassin bundle, and just last year 2B and Nier from Square Enix's Nier franchise dropped as Siege skins as well.
Now, yet another gaming icon is coming to Rainbow Six Siege, as Klobrille posted a video on Twitter of Halo's Master Chief in-game as an Elite skin for Sledge. The Chief dons his Halo Infinite Mjolnir armor, which itself is inspired by Halo 3's suit, and wields Sledge's hammer which is altered to somewhat resemble a Gravity Hammer from the Halo universe. The video also showcased an animation which incorporates Chief's grapple hook from Halo Infinite and shows him crushing a Plasma Grenade with his hammer.
While it's a bit strange seeing Master Chief swinging around a sledgehammer, the fact that he's a skin for Sledge makes sense, as Sledge is the face of Rainbow Six Siege, much like the Chief is the face of Halo. Though the skin looks great, the sledgehammer does clip though a piece of armor on Chief's back when he rests the hammer on his shoulder. This could be a reason as to why the bundle has yet to be officially confirmed or announced by Rainbow Six. If this is the case, losing the hammer by swapping the skin to a different operator like Smoke or Mute could alleviate the clipping issue.
With Year 8 Season 3 of Siege underway, titled Operation Heavy Mettle, perhaps Ubisoft will be able to have Master Chief's skin ready by the end of the season. As Ubisoft's new free-to-play FPS XDefiant, which incorporates factions from across Ubisoft's entire catalog, is getting ready to roll out, time will tell whether it'll give Ubisoft's own long-running Rainbow Six Siege some serious competition. Regardless, there's no doubt that Ubisoft's internal crossovers are about to ramp up.
Rainbow Six Siege is available now on Luna, PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.
