Games Design (Analyzing a game from the past)

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege (R6)

Technology

R6 was released in late 2015, it was the latest game is the Tom Clancy's series and was released onto the Xbox one, PS4 and PC. It was the first game in the series to be an online multiplayer PvP game rather than a campaign. R6 was made at a time where fast-action PvP first person shooter games were popular, such as Halo 5 and Call of  Duty Black ops 3  (these were also released around the same time). However R6 decided to make a more slow and tactical style PvP first person shooter rather than fast action.

R6 has changed a lot since its release in 2015. The game has become more competitive. A game mechanic that sets R6 apart from other PvP fist person shooters is how destructive the map is. Players can destroy parts of the map and manipulate it to get an advantage on their enemies. This was a feature that had never been seen before in video games, this is because it was not possible before due to the limitations in technology at the time. Because of this R6 has focused heavily on updating this feature to make it a game changing feature in video games. R6 has had graphical updates and updated the lighting system since the game was launched. 

Culture

Overtime R6 has become very diverse and has added operators from a lot of different cultures and backgrounds from across the world. R6 has focused on adding operators of different ethnicities from many different countries, they have also focused on adding LGBTQ+ operators over the last couple of years.

The main player base for R6 is teenagers and young adults from around the ages of 14-22. The target players were players that played first person shooters such as Call of Duty and players that enjoy competitive games and being challenged as R6 is a competitive shooter and rewards you for playing as a team.

Analysis

R6 is an enjoyable yet competitive game but some aspects could still be improved, Such as how the developers do not ask the the opinion of the player base when creating updates. An example of this is they do not ask if players want a new map, new operator or what mechanics that they think should be reworked. They could improve on this by letting player vote on changes they want to the game. e.g. letting the player base take a vote on what map gets reworked each season.

Another place that R6 could improve on is making operators more balanced, their is a small selection of operators that have a very low pick rate compared to the rest of the operators. This leads to some operators being almost useless as they are rarely picked and are almost forgotten about. This is why I think the game should focus on reworking operators that are picked a lot less than the rest and trying to give them all an equal play rate and make irrelevant operators relevant again rather than just ignoring them.

Update

If I was able to make an update for R6 I would focus on what the community wants and listen to ideas rather than not letting them have any input on what is changed. For example I would let the community decide what map needs reworking rather than changing a map that the play base likes, instead I would rework the maps most disliked by the community.

Also in the Ranked game mode, I would replace the maps with the highest ban rates and let the player base vote (out of a selection of maps) which should be the replacement.

Overall I think this would make the player base enjoy the game more if they get more of a say with updates as well as keeping the maps and features they enjoy. This would improve the overall quality of the game by keeping every season fresh and entertaining rather than feeling repetitive and laborious.