Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege is an online tactical shooter game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released worldwide for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on December 1, 2015. It was also released for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S exactly five years later on December 1, 2020.

Development
Originally, Ubisoft had the idea to create a game that was similar to what Siege became, but more focused on a single-player story-driven experience, known as Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Patriots. The game was revealed on November of 2011 via an official concept trailer showing how one of the levels would possibly look like in the final release. Alongside with that, they also revealed the game's box art via the December 2011 issue of Game Informer, including some info about what the game will be about. However, in March 2012, things didn't seem to go well with the development of the game, as it was announced that all major directors for the game were removed from the development team.

Since then, there wasn't any news talking about Patriots until May 2013, when GameStop removed the game on their database and cancelled all pre-orders.

During the same year at E3, Ubisoft confirmed that the game was still in development, but would be produced for the eighth generation consoles.

Finally, on June 9th 2014, it was announced that Patriots was ultimately scrapped, and reworked into Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege as a replacement.

Story
While the game does not have a specific story, there is at least some info about the setting of the game:

The game takes place in 2015, three years since the Team Rainbow Program was deactivated. During that time, terrorist organizations from around the world would emerge, with one of them being the White Masks, causing chaos around the world. With their ultimate goal being unknown, they became a highly dangerous threat. As an answer to fight back against the White Masks, the Rainbow Program was reactivated under the leadership of Aurelia Arnot (also codenamed as Six), and started gathering Operators from around the world, training them into bomb defusing and hostage rescuing, so they can face the White Masks.

Eventually, on September 26th 2015, Team Rainbow would be dispatched after it was reported that the White Masks launched a biochemical attack on the Bartlett University, with the goal of Team Rainbow to eliminate all threats inside one of the campuses, and defuse the bombs.

The operation (known as Article 5 in the game) ended up as a tremendous success, although with casualties. On the ending cutscene of the mission, Six gives a eulogy about the people who died on the terrorist attack, but also affirming that the reactivation of the Rainbow Program was the best option in a time filled with risks and uncertainties. Now, Team Rainbow was ready for their next mission; Protect the world wherever needed, and find the leader of the White Masks.

Gameplay
The game emphasizes and heavily encourages cooperation, tactics, and communication among team members. Before each round starts, players will have to prepare themselves by choosing a Spawn location and picking an Operator, each having their own stats, loadout, and Operator Ability.

Once the game is loaded for everyone, the round starts with the Preparation Phase, where each team has to accomplish their goal:
 * The Attackers must use their drones in order to gain intel about locations, enemy gadgets, and enemy Operators, while also looking for the Bombs that are in one of the selected locations on the map.
 * The Defenders must fortify the rooms that have the Bombs in while setting up their gadgets and destroying the Attacker drones to prevent important info being compromised.

Once the timer runs out, the Preparation Phase ends and shifts to the Action Phase, where the Attackers must get inside and try to kill the opposing team, or defuse one of the bombs, while the Defenders must protect the Bomb by killing the Attackers, or shutting down the Defuser (should it be planted). The match ends when one of the teams reach the score limit.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) The gameplay of Rainbow Six Siege can be undoubtedly considered as one of the best, taking the original formula of the R6 franchise and improving it, making for a difficult, yet rewarding experience.
 * 2) * And despite it being very difficult, it is still very fun to play, meaning that even if you aren’t that good, there’s still a decent chance of winning, as long as you communicate with your team.
 * 3) The graphics are good for 2015 standards, and are still pretty decent to this day.
 * 4) There are over 60 Operators and all of them have different Operator Abilities, allowing for lots of experimenting to find which Operator fits your playstyle.
 * 5) The cutscenes when you buy a Pathfinder Operator, are very interesting. The context of these cutscenes show the Operator narrating the scene, showing off what they are doing, or preparing for the battlefield, giving an insight of what to expect with said Operator.
 * 6) You have limited supplies. While this may sound bad, it’s actually good, as it makes the game more intense and realistic, by adding the issue of managing your supplies.
 * 7) Thanks to the difficult gameplay, it effectively encourages teamwork, coordination, and improvisation, as it's necessary in order to win. In fact, if you ignore these aspects and go for a Run N' Gun tactic, it's guaranteed that you will die, and even cost the entire match for your team.
 * 8) While there's no real character development for the playable Operators, you can still find their biographies and official videos centering around them (primarily the Operator Reveal trailers), which is enough for people who also care about the lore of the game.
 * 9) Aside from the Bomb mode the game offers, there are also two more modes you can play via Quick/Custom Match:
 * 10) * Hostage: This is essentially the Bomb mode, but instead of a bomb, the terrorists have a hostage in the map, and Team Rainbow must rescue the Hostage and extract them.
 * 11) * Secure Area: In this mode, the terrorists have a Biohazard container that they will use as a weapon, and Team Rainbow has to get inside the area and secure the container for a few seconds.
 * 12) While many games do have that, the Kill Cam in this case can be deemed as a really important aspect, as not only it will help you learn from your mistakes, but also help you start creating strats and considering alternative decisions, which is necessary if you wanna thrive in the game.
 * 13) The game includes Microtransactions (in the form of R6 Credits) and Loot Boxes (in the form of Alpha Packs), but thankfully, those are optional, and aren't necessary to use. Even then, you can only use Credits for cosmetics, the Battle Pass (which also gives cosmetics and just early access to each Season's new Operator), and the Operators (which you can still unlock by grinding for Renown)
 * 14) * The Alpha Packs are also kinda generous, as you can get them by winning matches and being lucky enough for them to give you one, and once again, they just include fun cosmetics you can use.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Although there is a single-player mode where you  can face off against AI, there is no specific story that could help turn the operators into real characters, regardless if they ended up being likeable or dislikable. The only thing of a story that exists in the game is the backstories and biographies of all Operators, and the Article 5 mission in the Situations Mode, but it's still not enough.
 * 2) The difficult learning curve of the game, while usually a good challenge, can be frustrating or annoying for new players or people who are new to the genre of first-person/tactical shooters, thus discouraging most players from continuing playing the game.
 * 3) While not related to the game itself, there's an extremely useless HD Texture Pack, that, unless you have a really fast SSD and a 4K monitor, won't do any big differences at all. Worse, it can cripple loading times, which is not good at all, especially for a game that's Online-only.
 * 4) Considering the fact that the game is online-only, there's not really a lot of stuff to do if you by any chance don't have an Internet connection, aside from the Training Grounds/Terrorist Hunt mode.