Rainbow Six Siege's new Showdown event is a rootin' tootin' good time

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

A fine posse of Rainbow Six Siege operators have yeehawed up for a new limited time event, Showdown. Ubisoft surprise-dropped the Showdown mode alongside a new map, Fort Truth. It's only running for two weeks, but I'm already wishing it'd stay around longer.

Fort Truth is a very small map, consisting mostly of outdoor ruins and a central church. The mode is 3v3 elimination with short 90 second rounds. Instead of Siege's usual automatic assault rifles, everyone's equipped with a BOSG double-barreled slug shotgun reskinned to look like a Wild West-era repeater rifle and a trust revolver. Showdown matches are brief, but extremely tense.

Compared to Siege's last LTM, Rainbow Is Magic, Showdown is refreshing. There was novelty to RIM's reskinned Plane map and sugar-coated sound effects, but Showdown gives players a brand new mode that feels completely different from typical Siege. Defenders can venture outside Fort Truth without being spotted, which racks up the tension when a round begins. The BOSG and revolver are tough weapons to shoot accurately under stress, but it only takes one or two shots to go down.

Best of all, Fort Truth is just a really cool map. It's light on destruction, but heavy on cover and little details that make Siege maps feel alive. It'd be a real shame if the map truly went away after the two week event. I reached out to Ubi on Twitter to see if they're considering keeping the map available in custom games, but I haven't heard back yet.

rainbow six siege showdown maestro sheriff black — (Image credit: ubisoft)

The only blemish on the event is, unfortunately, the premium Showdown packs that Ubi is hoping you'll buy. Most of the Showdown skins are lackluster (par for the course with Siege) with a few exceptions, like Maestro's badass "Sheriff Black" headgear seen above.

I'd love to get my hands on Hot Cowboy Maestro, but since event skins can't be bought piecemeal like the rest of Siege's cosmetics, my only option is to keep buying packs until it pops up. And that can get expensive—buying all 31 Showdown cosmetics costs about $70. Yea, no thanks Ubi.

Rainbow Six Siege Showdown is free for all players to try out and is running from today through July 16. Hopefully, Fort Truth won't disappear with it.

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Morgan has been writing for PC Gamer since 2018, first as a freelancer and currently as a staff writer. He has also appeared on Polygon, Kotaku, Fanbyte, and PCGamesN. Before freelancing, he spent most of high school and all of college writing at small gaming sites that didn't pay him. He's very happy to have a real job now. Morgan is a beat writer following the latest and greatest shooters and the communities that play them. He also writes general news, reviews, features, the occasional guide, and bad jokes in Slack. Twist his arm, and he'll even write about a boring strategy game. Please don't, though.