When did Rainbow Six Siege come out?

Rainbow Six Siege is not a new game, that's no secret. Rainbow Six Siege has become one of the most popular shooters over the past few years, known for its realistic gunplay and intense team-based gameplay. But when did Rainbow Six Siege come out? 

Rainbow Six Siege came out on December 1, 2015. 

Rainbow Six Siege wasn't always the plan, actually. Rainbow 6: Patriots was announced in 2011, boasting a deep narrative-driven campaign with an abundance of cut scenes. Unfortunately, Rainbow 6: Patriot ran into many issues soon after it was announced, dealing with leadership changes and an outdated enginge. 

• Related: A brief history of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six games

Rainbow 6: Patriots was set to be released on seventh-generation video game consoles but they were not capable of running the game as it became more complex. With new consoles on the way, Ubisoft decided to make the game even more advanced. Patriots was canceled and a new team was assembled to create Siege for the new generation of consoles. 

Rainbow Six Siege was an entirely different game than Patriots. Single-player was abandoned and developers started focusing on multiplayer almost exclusively. This was in hopes of making Siege have a lot of replay value.

Development began in 2013, with the game initially being called Rainbow Six Unbreakable. This was in reference to the wall destruction mechanics that make Siege so unique. At first, developers feared that fans would be disappointed in the new direction. 

But that was clearly not the case. 

When did Rainbow Six Siege esports start? 

With the new focus on multiplayer, Ubisoft also wanted to create an esports scene surrounding Rainbow Six Siege. In late 2013, developers met with ESL VP David Hiltscher to discuss balancing the game for viable competitive play. 

ESL and Ubisoft announced the Rainbow Six Pro League soon after for PC and Xbox players. The competition was held at the Intel Extreme Masters Esports tournament in 2016. The Pro Leauge returned in 2017, back by popular demand. 

• Related: What is the Six Invitational?

The Six Invitational tournament series also arrived in 2017. The 2018 Six Invitational tournament had 321K viewers on Twitch. The Six Invitational grew and grew, reaching a $3 million prize pool in 2020. The Pro League ended around this time but Six Invitational continues to grow.