After holding out for 10 years, Rainbow Six Siege is finally going free-to-play (kind of)

One of the last pay-to-play holdouts is laying down its swordsledgehammer. To coincide with its big year 10 refresh, Rainbow Six Siege is finally going free-to-play. Well, for the most part.

As part of the Rainbow Six Siege X update coming June 10, the tactical FPS will enter what Ubisoft calls "free access." The majority of Siege will be free to access, but its two most competitive modes, Ranked and Siege Cup, will remain behind a paywall.

Speaking to PC Gamer at a Siege X preview event in Atlanta, game director Alex Karpazis explained why the team ultimately decided against a full free-to-play scheme.

"We want people to invite their friends to try out Siege, and we want to give them the majority of the game so that they understand what makes this game so special," Karpazis said. "That reduces the barrier [to entry], because honestly Siege is at its best when you've got friends playing with you."

When Siege released in 2015, paid multiplayer games were the norm, and "live service" didn't mean anything yet. It was Fortnite and later hits Apex Legends and Warzone that made free-to-play the new standard for shooters. Several games that launched in a pre-Fortnite era, like PUBG and Overwatch, eventually embraced the free model, but Siege has remained steadfast in its price tag until now.

In 2020, then-director Leroy Athanassoff told me a lot of the development wanted Siege to be free someday, but there was one very good reason to remain a premium game: To not make life any easier for smurfs and cheaters. Smurfing will technically be easier when Siege X enters free access, but Karpazis thinks locking Ranked behind the full version will balance the scales.

"Having that barrier to Ranked or Siege Cup means you have to be committed to the game. It does mean we weed out smurfs, and it means we're prepared to continue supporting the most competitive aspect of the game," Karpazis said.

"It is, in our opinion, the best of both worlds where you can bring in new players but also have this place where veterans feel super competitive and committed to the game."

One modestly-sized elephant in the room is that, even though Siege still retails for $20, picking up a cheap copy is extremely easy. In the last year alone, Siege has gone on sale for $8 on 10 different occasions. As I write this, it's at a two-year low of $4 on Steam. It's so cheap so often that there's a decent chance you bought it five years ago and forgot. Anyone dedicated enough to Siege to want a second account can already buy one for the price of a large coffee.

At the same time that Siege X enters free access, it'll also receive Dual Front, its first new permanent mode in 10 years. I played a few matches of Dual Front here in Atlanta and had a good time. Stay tuned for more Siege X coverage as Ubi formally unveils the game today.