Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege is on fire. Immediately after the announcement of Year 9 at the Six Invitational 2024, Ubisoft's title gained popularity. With the tournament peaking at slightly over 520,000 viewers, the features introduced in Year 9 and the Anti Cheat update displayed in Brazil encouraged many former players to return.
Today, Rainbow Six Siege achieved something unthinkable one year ago: the game has seen 200,000 simultaneous players for the first time in its nine years of history, according to Steam Charts.
Before today, the record was set in Mar. 2020 as 198,557 players used Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege simultaneously. Four years later, the community has broken the 200,000 barrier.
Why is Rainbow Six Siege getting so popular recently?
For the last few days, SiegeGG has reported multiple times how the numbers have been going up since Ubisoft's announcements made in Brazi. Explaining Rainbow Six Siege's most recent success is easy and it shouldn't come as a surprise.
The first step was to make sure that the Six Invitational 2024 would reach the whole community of Rainbow Six Siege, including the casual scene. To do that, Ubisoft partnered with some of the most colossal streamers in the community, like Jynxzi, Shroud, and Gaules. Additionally, a lot of content creators and media were brought to the event, with SiegeGG being included in the tournament's presential coverage.
Spreading the word is extremely important and that's what happened. Ubisoft successfully reached the Siege community, including those players who thought the game was dead. Additionally, first-person shooter enjoyers got curious about Siege: "Why is there so much hype?" and, most importantly, "Should I give it a try?"
Two weeks after the Six Invitational 2024, Operation Deadly Omen was finally released. Everything went smoothly, players didn't have major troubles, and the servers coped with the new season with no issues. Here's when the second step comes.
On Mar. 15, Rainbow Six Siege's standard version got an 80% discount. This means that the price went from USD$19,99 to USD$3,99, making the game more accessible. Keep in mind that first-person shooter games like Valorant or CS2 are free. Meanwhile, Siege isn't.
Plain and simple, the hype created by content creators, media, and players, added to a drop in the game's price, are arguably the reasons behind Rainbow Six Siege's record-breaking figures.
Fortunately, this is nothing but good news. With the game's player numbers being so healthy, Ubisoft has the mission to complete the third step: keeping the new players in the game.
Such a tsunami of hype is a double-edged sword. If Ubisoft isn't capable of tackling the cheater problem, a drop in the player count could be around the corner. Keeping the hype alive is as important as creating it. Will Ubisoft be able to achieve that?