It’s in the second round of my hands-on with Rainbow Six Siege’s Heresford Base map that things come unstuck. The first round on defence was a breeze; myself and my four squad mates having survived an assault on our heavily fortified armory stronghold with barely a bullet lodged in our body armour. So when roles were reversed in round two, and perhaps thanks in part to the false sense of security afforded by the beefy ballistic shield I’d equipped to my load out, I clambered foolishly through an un-boarded window only to land feet-first in a tangled barbwire trap - distracted for just long enough to be flanked from the side and quickly dispatched. One-shot. Dead.

I should have known that I would be ambushed, and perhaps I would have had I taken some time beforehand to watch some games on the map using Rainbow Six Siege’s spectator cam mode. While Ubisoft’s upcoming tactical squad shooter only supports up to 10 players per game, five per side, an eleventh player can join purely as a passive participant to watch and learn the tactics of more experienced players. [Note: Spectator cam will only be a feature of the PC version of the game when it launches this October - it will be added to the console versions some time in 2016.]



“Spectator cam has been an idea that has been kicked around for a long time on the project,” says Scott Mitchell, animation director at developer Ubisoft Montreal. “Really it’s just an excellent teaching tool, it’s a great way for new players to come in and watch the tactics that are used in different maps and in different scenarios,”

“It can be very tough when you first start out, it’s a very tense game. So it’s a great way for players to look at all the different first-person perspectives from all the different operators, and kind of learn what the gadgets are all about, and hopefully use those tactics when they play.”

Spectator cam gives an enormous amount of flexibility to the passive eleventh player. You can switch between the first person perspective of any player on either team, as well as the viewpoint from any rolling or airborne drones that might be in play, or mounted CCTV cameras. Most importantly, you can switch to a top-down perspective to get a more complete overview of each encounter and the strategies involved, and there’s even a flying ‘free cam’ to afford you a more dynamic view of the tactics (and carnage) as they unfold.

The spectating player is able to see information like health and ammunition levels per active player, but there are some restrictions. Most notably, they’re unable to hear the voice chat from either team - so as to prevent any would be cheats from relaying information from one team to the other.

But spectator cam is clearly intended to be used in a number of ways, whether the player is spectating a game with friends firsthand, or they’re watching a stream of a more experienced player commentating a match during spectator mode, or indeed as part of a broadcast of an e-sports event. For the latter example in particular, nailing the game’s visual look and feel has been paramount.

“We’re looking to make a game that’s just as entertaining to watch as it is to play,” continues Mitchell. “As someone who’s only watching you still want to feel the tension that’s going on,”

“As an animation director you’re looking to inject a certain style into characters, and what’s interesting is trying to learn all these different tactics that real counter terrorist operatives are using. We have an ex-Israeli counter terrorist unit operator who’s doing a lot of our mo-cap with us, and he’s able to mimic multiple different counter terrorist unit styles. So he can show us exactly the difference in basic tactical manoeuvres between an Israeli special forces unit and a SWAT team, for example. So having that reference for us has been hugely helpful in nailing the look and feel.”



Of course, at the end of the day there’s only so much you can learn from watching, and players are still encouraged to hone their skills via the firsthand experience that comes from being behind the iron sights. And in a team-based game that has such an unflinchingly realistic portrayal of player mortality, there’s one gameplay technique more crucial than any weapon choice or gadget use.

“Spectator Cam is an add-on that gives the ability to check things out and learn new tactics, but if you want to win in Rainbow Six Siege it always comes back to communication with your squad - that’s what’s really important,” says Mitchell. “We’re looking to push the importance of squad communication more than anything.”

It was admittedly a tip that was hard to put into practise with the four complete strangers I shared my Gamescom demo with, but at any rate I certainly came away from my hands-on with a strong sense that Rainbow Six Siege will be a game to watch - in every sense of the word - this October.