Rainbow Six Siege Beta: 10 Big Things You Need To Know
3. There Are Elements Of Story We'll Never See Explored
Since Siege's announcement fans have been dying to see how it fits into the Clancy chronology, especially as more and more details began to emerge about its shift to spotlighting individual CTUs and not team Rainbow as we once knew it. Well, communication from Ubisoft has been...contradictory, to say the least. At their rather impressive E3 2015 slot the studio took great delight in announcing the superb Angela Bassett's role in the game as the new director of Rainbow. Following one from this, Ubisoft also published a press release stating that Siege would have a story centred around the 'reactivation' of Rainbow to counter the threat of the 'White Mask' terror group. This all sounded really promising, and a great parallel towards the series' achingly long hiatus. I mean, who doesn't want to embark on a globe-trotting Clancy-esque adventure, recruiting operators from all over the world to reassemble Rainbow? It's an opportunity no fan of the series would pass up on, so you can imagine the bewilderment that the community reacted with when Ubi revealed last week that the game wouldn't be featuring a story mode after all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSCQ_mN0eVc This worrisome revelation hasn't done much to reassure fans that Rainbow's come back would be a return to form for the series. With the tumultuous development and subsequent cancellation of Siege's predecessor, 'Patriots' still niggling at the back of many minds, no doubt this decision will have dissuaded many a pre-order. The story's presence is laid bare for all to see in the beta, with each operator being given a mini bio fleshing out their backstory and relation to Rainbow's reactivation. The White Masks too are also a key force, though obviously reduced to cannon fodder without a motivation in the current Terrohunt arenas. The fate of Siege's story mode may not be set in stone, but Ubisoft's clarification regarding the matter should probably be their first priority as the beta wraps up this week.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
