Rainbow Six: Siege – 30 Tips To Keep You Alive

Rainbow Six Siege hit shelves a few days ago and we've been hard at work playing and analyzing the game, figuring out the best strategies that'll lead you to victory. The truth of the matter is that Siege is a game dripping with tension and uncertainty, where the outcome is often based on quick reflexes just as much as it's determined by careful planning. That said, we've got a plethora of advice of here that might just make the difference between you winning and losing.

General Tips

These little nuggets of advice apply to the game whether you're playing as attackers or defenders.

1.     Play with a headset

No, seriously. If you have a headset, you need to use it, lest you risk the wrath of your teammates and the consequences of not being able to communicate quickly in a game that's about making tactical decisions within seconds. Headphones with directional sound can also help you hear the footsteps of approaching enemies.

2.       Coordinate team composition before a match

You have a 30 second prep session before each game to chat with your teammates and pick your operator, a class equipped with special abilities. Talk with your team about which class to use, taking into account what map you're playing and your own personal strengths with each class. Having two players who have virtually the same abilities – shields for instance – doesn't benefit anyone unless that's specifically part of your plan and everyone's on board.

3.       Don't immediately spend all your Renown on operators

In Siege, you have to unlock operators with a currency known as Renown. There's a strong temptation to use your early money to unlock as many operators as you can for both attackers and defenders, but you're better off unlocking a class or two for each team and then spending your leftover money on weapon upgrades, like suppressors and scopes, before saving up some more to unlock other operators. Scopes in particular can be a godsend in a standoff.

4.       Adjust your brightness settings

Most contemporary games seem to have a brightness adjustment prompt when you load them up for the first time. Siege doesn't have that and it's unfortunate because, depending on your monitor or television screen, hallways and rooms can be hard to see even when there are sources of light placed all over the room. So if you're having trouble with that be sure to go into Options and fiddle around with the brightness slider.

5.       Play Situations

Unlike most previous Rainbow Six games, Siege lacks a lengthy campaign. Instead, you have a series of training missions called Situations that teach the strengths of various operators as you accomplish specific mission objectives, like rescuing hostages or disarming bombs. They're not actually great training for the multiplayer mode because enemy A.I. is dumber than a bag of hammers, but completing challenges associated with each mission (scoring a certain number of headshots, keeping above 50-percent health) will give you a generous amount of Renown that can be used to buy operators and precious upgrades. You can also start watching some of the tutorial videos to grab some Renown. You don’t even have to finish it, just skip it a few seconds in and you’ll have some more cash to buy equipment or operators with.

6.        Learn maps by heart

Every map is essentially a structure with several floors and multiple points of entry for each floor. Learn those entry points. If you're an attacker, knowing the various locations where your target's room can be will let you reach them with your drone more quickly to get a glimpse of what defenses your opponents are installing. As a defender, knowing every vulnerability and point of entry in your "safe" room is invaluable knowledge that might help you outwit your foes and destroy them before they even gain entry.

7.       Be useful even in death

One of the best features in Siege is the ability to participate in the match in an active way even after you've been gunned down, blown to bits, or tumbled off a roof by accident. When playing as the attackers, you get access to your drones; as defenders, you can access the security cameras placed around every level and tag enemies or even talk to your living teammates, feeding them information on enemies making their way to the objective you're guarding. 

8.        Meet your teammates half way

Unless it's a headshot, you'll often find yourself downed and bleeding out when you get hit by enough rounds. You can still crawl away to safety and hope for a teammate to reach and revive you. However, don't just wait around so you can draw a friend into enemy fire. Move toward them or at least to cover. If it looks like getting a revive might put the match in jeopardy, it's best to trust your teammates' tactical appraisal and just take one for the sake of the match.

9.       Be conscious of enemy cameras

Whenever you're spotted by an enemy's camera, you'll get a notification saying so. It's often in your best interest to scan the environment and take out that camera before moving on to your objective.

10.   Use destructible environments to your advantage

Siege's destructible walls and floors aren't just a nice looking technical achievement; they're a valuable tactical option for both teams. Got a room with two tagged enemies in it that's surrounded by wooden walls? Fire a clip into the wall. More often than not, you'll probably down at least one of them. If you're a defender, you can create peepholes in wooden and concrete walls that you can use to spot and shoot enemies through. Just be aware they can fire through that hole too. 

Tips for Attackers

1.       Place drone cameras wisely

At the beginning of each match, you have about half a minute to use your drones to find your objective while enemies set up defenses. If you find the room you need to breach, it's not a bad idea to park that drone somewhere out of sight so you can flip back to the drone occasionally during the match and keep an eye on your enemies. If you don't find the objective, it's still a good notion to check back in to your drone to see if an enemy is stationed nearby.

2.       Coordinate your breaches

Make a plan about where to enter the structure and the target room. If you have to change the plan, which is a likely scenario, be sure the rest of the team is in agreement or is at least aware of developments.

3.       Be stealthy

Defenders will hear your footsteps if you're running around, so it's often a good idea to crouch down and move quietly through the map, checking corners as you go, until you're ready to put the assault plan into action.

4.       Look out for traps

Most of the traps in the game can be avoided by caution. Before you breach a door, punch a hole in it and look through to see if there's a tripwire across it. You may also notice red screws sticking out of the bottom of a window or door, a telltale sign that there’s a nasty explosive trap attached to it. Also be on the lookout for razor wire that can slow your movement and alert enemies to your presence. If that wire is electrified, it can also deal some serious damage in a short amount of time. Certain operatives have abilities that can shut down traps and grenades, so it's always useful to have at least one of those on the team.

5.       Shields are your friends

Certain operators also have deployable shields and mobile shields they can carry with them (at the cost of having a pistol with limited ammo being their only firearm). This class is invaluable, often allowing someone to bully their way into a breached room while providing cover for their squad.

6.       Be cautious with explosives

Things that go boom are great! Until you lob a grenade into a room and it rolls over to the hostage you're supposed to be rescuing. Oops. Learn how the grenades travel, their velocity and trajectory, and don't just throw them everywhere or you might end up killing yourself, a teammate, or even your entire team.

7.       Use clusters when breaching

The operator Fuze comes with a neat little mini-cannon that you can stick into a barricaded door that fires some small grenades into a room capable of damaging foes. I've played at least two matches where an entire team was wiped out by two well-placed cluster charges. Again, exercise caution when playing a hostage map.

8.        Be careful rappelling

The ability to rappel along the side of buildings and break through windows is really, really cool...in theory. Sometimes you're probably going to die because the rappel control scheme is wonky. It's still a great tactical option to use as long as you're not leaping through a window and into a room with three defenders who can have their gunsights on you in a second.

9.        Spot as many defenders as possible before breaching

The drones are probably the attackers' most valuable asset. Be sure to place one in the target room if you get a chance and mark every single enemy in sight before you breach, so you know where they are.

10.    Look for upper floor points of entry

One of the most difficult things for defenders to hold off against is an aerial assault from a team that's blown through the ceiling of the safe room. Once you know where your target is, have someone search the floor above it to see if there's a hatch you can blow open to catch your opponents by surprise. 

Tips for Defenders

1.       Agree on a defensive strategy beforehand. Really.

This is important for both teams. However, it's even more important for the defenders since they have to know where they're placing barricades and how to use their trap resources. If everyone's not on the same page, you could be setting yourselves up to be blown to bits by someone's ill-placed C4.

2.       Use traps as distractions

One of the biggest tell-tell signs of a room with the attackers' target in it is a barricaded door with several traps. It's basically a red flag, so use that to your advantage. Have someone run upstairs or downstairs and place wires and reinforced doors to use as distractions so you have more time to prepare for the inevitable assault.

3.       Use reinforcements but don't get cocky

One of the best assets to the defenders is the ability to reinforce walls, making it much harder for the attackers to break through. Don't get cocky though. The operator Thermite can blow through those doors with a class-specific charge. You are never safe in this game. Ever.

4.       Look out for ceiling entries

A number of target rooms have ceiling entries for the attackers to burst through. It's in your best interest to have at least one person keeping their gun trained on a roof hatch if you find one so they can call out if enemies breach through or, worse, use a cluster charge to try and rain death down on you.

5.       Have someone manning the cameras

Defenders have access to security cameras located around each level. Once the drone reconnaissance stage of each match is over, it's smart to have someone flipping through the various cameras in order to tag enemies as they search for or approach the target room.

6.       Sweep for drones

The attackers knowing where their target is from the get-go can end your match pretty quickly. While everyone is erecting defenses, it's best to send someone upstairs or downstairs to try and lead the drones on a false trail. You can shoot them as well to prevent them from reaching the target room and thus marking it on the attackers' screen for the rest of the match, but if you can pull it off, it's better to opt for misdirection.

7.       Set up jammers

Mute is an unlockable operator who can set up jammers that kill all sorts of electronic devices, including drones. Don't place them all in your target room though since that's an immediate tip off that that's the room they should make a beeline for. Instead, run about the structure, placing them as quickly as you can by high traffic areas like stairs or doors to shut down the drones and avoid inadvertently revealing the target's location.

8.       Be smart when using your traps

It might be tempting to use up all your traps at the beginning of the match when fortifying the target room's position but be sure to save at least one of them for the probable breach, particularly throwable explosives or biochemical weapons, since you never know when they might come in handy.

9.       Fortify traps

Along with walls and doors, you can also mod certain traps. Bandit is an operator that has an electric device he can hook up to any razor wire that  will damage players who are unfortunate to trample across it as well as killing any drones that decide to roll through it.

10.   Play dirty

In hostage mode, if the attackers accidentally kill the hostage, they lose the match. Cowering behind them and using them as a human shield is cheap, dirty but above all, effective.

Got any tips of your own? Let us know in the comments below!