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Rainbow Six Siege developers will roll back controversial 'censorship' update, Ubisoft announces

Changes included getting rid of symbols and decoration that used skulls, blood that was cleaned up and the disappearance of gambling machines

Andrew Griffin
Thursday 22 November 2018 12:33 GMT
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Host Aisha Tyler presents the game "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege" at the Ubisoft Media Briefing in Los Angeles
Host Aisha Tyler presents the game "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege" at the Ubisoft Media Briefing in Los Angeles

Rainbow Six Siege players around the world will not have to play a censored version of the game after a major U-turn by developers Ubisoft.

The company announced earlier this month that it would be making substantial changes to the game's look to allow it to be played in China. Those included getting rid of symbols and decoration that used skulls, blood that was cleaned up and the disappearance of gambling machines.

Despite assurances that the alterations were entirely superficial and would not affect gameplay, fans were immediately angry that such significant changes were being made wherever they were in the world. Though the alterations were in response to demands from the Chinese government, they were rolled out globally.

Now Ubisoft has listened to the anger and announced it will be reversing that decision, reverting the changes and bringing back the old look.

It said that it had made the decision because it had been "following the conversation with our community closely over the past couple of weeks, alongside regular discussions with our internal Ubisoft team, and we want to ensure that the experience for all our players, especially those that have been with us from the beginning, remains as true to the original artistic intent as possible".

The controversy has been unfolding since the very beginning of the month, when Ubisoft announced in an update that it would be making "aesthetic changes" to the game.

"We are currently working towards preparing Rainbow Six Siege for expansion into Asian territories," the developers wrote. "As such, there will be some adjustments made to our maps and icons to ensure compliance. None of these changes will have an impact on gameplay."

(Ubisoft

The same post explained that developers had chosen to make one global version of the game – rather than a censored and uncensored one – so that work didn't need to be duplicated when future changes were made.

The alterations will be rolled back from now, Ubisoft said, but some may still be left behind. "We will carefully remove them all to the best of our ability considering the short timeframe and with the lowest impact on the season’s launch date and our build stability," it wrote.

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