Ubisoft has caved into fan-pressure and reversed planned aesthetic changes to Rainbow Six Siege.
In a November 2 blogpost, Ubisoft said: “We are currently working towards preparing Rainbow Six Siege for expansion into Asian territories. 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.” The blogpost showed examples of icons and screens including skulls and slot-machines which would be altered (in other words watered down) to accommodate the Asian audience.
But a fierce backlash among Rainbow Six Siege players ensued, with the game’s Steam page review-bombed with comments like: “Globally censored to conform with the demands of China’s fascist regime. Do not support.” As a result, Ubisoft has now backtracked and announced it will not implement the changes across all regions.
In the blogpost announcing its retraction of the proposed changes, the French publisher said: “We have spent the last week working on solutions and have decided that we will be reverting all aesthetic changes. We have 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.”
Ubisoft’s volte-face took place just as Rainbow Six Siege’s Operation Wind Bastion DLC hit the game’s test servers. To keep up to date on Rainbow Six Siege news, make sure you watch the game’s website.