Rainbow Six Siege wraps up Ubisoft's E3 press event with a really big bang

It's been awhile since we last had the opportunity to play a Rainbow Six game, but Ubisoft looks set to make up for that lost time with the Rainbow Six: Siege, a team-based showdown between the elite counter-terrorism force and the heavily-armed evil-doers who make their job necessary.

I'll admit that I didn't expect to be as impressed with a Rainbow Six trailer as I was by this one, but the return of the tactical shooter at the tail-end of the Ubisoft presser—introduced by none other than CEO Yves Guillemot—made a real splash. The lengthy five-on-five gameplay trailer has a little bit of everything: pre-mission planning, cooperative tactics, placeable defenses, destructible environments and lots and lots of guns, bombs and bullets flying everywhere.

The hostage angle was a little bit dicey in its own right. Control of the hostage passed rather easily back and forth between the two teams, and as an unarmored non-combatant in the middle of a raging, explosive firefight, she proved remarkably durable. But she was also perhaps a little too helplessly cooperative, and we've got our fingers crossed that the game will feature other types of hostages when it launches next year.

Andy Chalk

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.