With PAX AUS truly kicked into gear, Stevivor was able to spend a short amount of time with Joshua Mills, game director of Rainbow Six Siege X. Fresh off the back of an announcement about new anti-cheat and balancing measures, there was plenty to talk about.
Siege X shook things up on Siege‘s tenth anniversary earlier this year, taking the game free-to-play and adding in a bunch of new technology behind the scenes.
Speaking today, Mills said the main goal of Siege X was its technology.
“It’s proof of concept — if you look at our audio system, and our lighting system, these are modular engine updates that we’ve done. So ripping those out and replacing them. It’s it’s key to be able to update our tech; to be able to extend the runway where we can take Siege.”
Mills called the big Siege X update “a lot of work in the backend that is not player-facing until it is,” adding that it was a, “big, big, big opportunity to be able to go through and clean up a bunch of different things and open up the possibilities for what we can do in the future.”
Fast-forward to yesterday’s announcement, with both Mills and creative director Alex Karpazis admitting that they and their team have “been reading your feedback and recognize there are important subjects we need to address.”
At the top of a list of changes coming next week is an overhaul of Siege‘s anti-cheat system, which the pair said, “did not keep pace with the surge of cheaters that followed the move to Free Access, though we have made some progress.”
At PAX AUS, Mills told us he was reluctant to go into what the new system entails — for obvious reasons — but asserted that “it’s our fundamental goal with cheats is to make [cheaters’ lives] a living hell, so that they stop.”
The patch, coming 15 October, will also buff Denari, Solis and work toward buffs for Thermite, Hibana, and Maverick. Even still, Mills admitted there was further work to do.
“I think cadence of content is a big thing that we’ve been talking about,” he said. “It’s something that we knew we were going to be addressing as we launched Siege X as well because, let’s be honest, we want to make sure that people are engaged with the entire season.”
Mills said the he and his team are working towards “a robust mid-season content update so that you have a reason to [play] every time you log in. There’s something to be going on, something to do — something to focus on.”
For those attending PAX AUS, Mills also provided good reason for checking Siege X out at the PAX Arena stage over Saturday and Sunday.
“You’ve got to go to the stage and and watch, he said, “because whoever wins the stage is actually getting a spot in our [Siege X APL] Major. That’s a pretty big deal.
“You want to see what Siege can be? You watch the pros do it.”
Many thanks to Mills for his time.
Rainbow Six Siege is currently available on Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, PS4, PS5, and Amazon Luna.
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