You hear a lot about Overwatch and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive in esports, but Ubisoft has a shooter of its own that has attracted pro gamers.
The French publisher today released a short documentary on a recent Rainbow Six Siege tournament, the Six Invitational, that took place in Montreal in February. You can watch it above. Siege came out in 2015 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. The series (from the Tom Clancy book series) launched in 1998, and it has become a core franchise for Ubisoft, selling over 26 million games before the release of Siege.
Siege has a ways to go if it wants to reach the higher tiers of popular esports games. According to E-sports Earnings, Siege is the No. 49 competitive game, which it based off of total prize money given out in major tournaments. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is No. 3 on that list. It also the No. 28 ranked game on Twitch, averaging about 4,000 spectators on broadcasts.
The documentary follows Troy “Canadian” Jaroslawski and his team, Team Continuum, as attempt to defend their title in the PC version of the game. It also showcases a player’s final tournament before retirement.
The Six Invitational had a prize pool of $100,000, with $50,000 going to the winning team. That may not compete with some of the insane pots you find for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which has tournaments sometimes giving out more than $1 million. But Rainbow Six Siege is also a newer game. Counter-Strike: GO has had a thriving scene since 2012.
But Siege can climb that ladder. Ubisoft has committed itself to supporting the game for the long-term, with the publisher working on a series of game improvements called Operation Health that will that will make matchmaking faster and allow bug fixes to deploy to shooter more easily.