Rainbow Six Siege patch will improve matchmaking in Ranked

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For those coming fresh to Rainbow Six Siege, you'll probably be familiar with the tedium of being paired with an opposing team that is emphatically more experienced than your own. This can be fun, but given how much repeated play and map familiarity plays a part in Rainbow Six Siege, it's also exhausting. Good thing Ubisoft is releasing a patch to help teams in the Ranked playlist match up with teams of a (roughly) similar level.

The patch, which rolls out on Tuesday at 10:30AM EST /15:30 GMT (that's about 8:30 Wednesday morning on the east coast of Australia), changes the "relaxation parameters for Skill Rank". Previously there was no maximum rank differential between teams, but now there is one – though Ubisoft doesn't provide any numbers.

"Relaxation will occur quicker, but with smaller increments and with a maximum differential cap between teams. This means that you could see an increase in matchmaking queue times, but the match up will be better balanced and of better quality," the patch update reads.

The quick fix follows a patch last week which cleaned up a bunch of problems introduced with the recent Black Ice expansion. The next, yet-to-be-named expansion is expected to release in April.

Shaun Prescott

Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.