Rainbow Six Siege may ditch friendly fire in casual playlists

Rainbow Six Siege team killing

Though it’s not quite such a famous problem as it is in other games, Rainbow Six Siege suffers its own toxicity issues. It’s something the developers are certainly concerned with, and brand director Alexandre Remy says it’s something the team need to do more to solve.

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“Toxicity in Rainbow Six Siege,” says Remy, “as in many multiplayer and social games, is a very tricky one. Clearly, we are still lacking some of the tools that are absolutely necessary for fighting it. We have Battleye and a button to report players for suspicious behaviour, but it is not enough, so we need to do more. The next step for us is to bring new, granular clarity to the reporting tool for a wider variety of behaviour that we want to chastise in the game.”

Remy says one of the biggest issues leading to the most toxicity is teamkilling. “We have a lot of ideas and we are thinking about how we can tackle teamkills. It depends on your place and your experience as a Rainbow Six Siege player, in fact I think it was with that I mentioned we are thinking about potentially removing friendly fire. I think that would resolve a lot of issues and for entry players I think it is a very good way of avoiding those behaviours. Starting next year, we need to start fixing toxicity.”

We asked if means friendly fire could get pulled from casual playlists soon. “It is not yet 100% decided. We are toying with that idea as a prototype, but it has some consequences, right? It is always a balance, if we decide to move forward with that idea, be sure that it is going to go to test servers first as it is such a heavy decision. Obviously it is something where we want to have feedback before we make it final. Maybe there are also aspects of friendly fire that we have not measured yet that can actually be triggered.”

As Remy says, it’s a trick step, and one that will be thoroughly tested. “Yes we will fight toxicity,” he says. “Yes we will put in place some measures like the reporting and potentially removing friendly fire in certain playlists and certain occasions. But before we do, it’s going to go on test servers.”

We also asked Remy how the team feel about their microtransactions in light of the Battlefront II controversy, and he says there’s a “bit of pride” in how Rainbow Six Siege’s optional purchases have panned out.