Ubisoft reverses price increase of Rainbow Six Siege Standard Edition

Update: Ubisoft clarified via email that the Advanced Edition will still be sold beginning in February. However, the current Standard Edition of the game won't be removed from sale in the process.

"The Rainbow Six: Siege Standard Edition will remain at its current price across PC and consoles. The newly announced Rainbow Six: Siege Advanced Edition will also still be released at the previously stated price of $59.99 on PC and consoles," Ubisoft said via email.

Original story:

The Rainbow Six Siege community's frustration at the recent price increase for the game has made Ubisoft think again, and the developer has rolled back the price jump on the Standard Edition of the game. Ubisoft had planned to turn the $40 edition into a $60 Advanced Edition with bonus cosmetic items and extra in-game currency, but in a Reddit thread yesterday it said it will be "keeping the Standard Edition in the store at the current price".

The rest of the price increases will go ahead as planned, which means the Gold Edition of the game, which includes the most recent year of DLC operators, will cost $90, rather than its present $70, and the Complete Edition of Siege will run $130, up from $90.

Additionally, Ubisoft said it has been listening to concerns about the rate at which players that buy the $15 Starter Edition of the game unlock new operators (it's very slow, which makes the edition difficult to recommend). "We recognize that this has been a point of frustration for new players, as well as existing players bringing their friends into the game, and have been working on how to make this process more fluid," it said. "We will be sharing more information about our next steps during the Six Invitational [next month]."

The team is also giving every existing player an Ash Sidewinder Elite skin for free as an apology for the kerfuffle that the price rise caused.

The price reversal on the Standard Edition is very good news—it's currently the best version of the game to buy, and a $20 increase would have put some people off. Likewise, it's encouraging to hear that the Starter Edition may become a viable option for new players. But the price hike on the other editions will still be a source of annoyance.

Click here to read Ubisoft's full statement. The Standard Edition of the game is currently $23 on the Humble Store.

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.