Ubisoft Explains The No Respawn Rule In Rainbow Six Siege

Dying and respawning in multiplayer shooters is pretty standard.

There are hardcore games out there where death is actually punished, but that wouldn't work in the online FPS sphere, right?

Well, Ubisoft Montreal is going to give it a try with Rainbow Six Siege . During multiplayer matches, you will have only one life. That's right, one life. If you die, you won't be able to play again until the next round begins, and the developer has explained their approach in a new blog post :

"When designing the game, we found that above all else, the No Respawn rule touched the three main pillars of what we want in this game: teamwork, tactics, and tension. Not only are these three pillars at the heart of Tom Clancy's video game series, but they’re arguably absent from the FPS market today. Even when playing on a team, run and gun titles emphasize twitch reflexes while neglecting other skill sets, and you may feel disconnected from the action and all alone in your plight. With Siege, that's not the case."

Ubisoft said they experimented with repeated respawning in an earlier build of the game, but this allowed strong solo players to carry a mediocre team. The No Respawn rule forces everyone to contribute and as the devs say, "twitch reflexes aren't the only skills that keep you alive." Game designer Chris Lee admitted that at first, they didn't think this could work, because it would only appeal to the hardcore gamer. However:

"It turned out that it really opened up the game to many different types of players. The developers who were longtime FPS players initially found it difficult because they were only good at reaction time. They weren't communicating, playing tactically, or thinking about the consequences. Their K/D ratio was high before, but after introducing One Life, they stopped thinking about K/D ratios and more about how each player could work together for the win."

Ubisoft believes that an adventure feel is more important, and works better than a run 'n gun setup. After all, this is Tom Clancy and it makes more sense. By the way, when you die in Rainbow Six Siege (set to come out next year), you'll enter a Support mode, where you can use visibility tools such as drones and security cameras. This will keep you in the loop even if you're not directly participating in the action.

So, what do you think?

Related Game(s): Rainbow Six Siege