Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto 6 releases this November, and it's expected to take up a lot of time and attention, leading some to worry how other games may fare in its wake. Ubisoft's Joshua Mills, the creative director for Rainbow Six Siege, said it's unquestionable that "you're going to take a hit when that drops."
"All of us are going to play it," Mills told The Game Business.
So what can Ubisoft do for Siege when GTA 6 comes out? He said, "It's about being smart and with your expectations so you can keep the team and HQ aligned." He said if the developers working on Siege see the game's player numbers drop, "they can get anxious." However, he observed that the effect on player numbers from a big competitor release is "generally temporary."
Whatever the case, Mills said the "golden rule" that Ubisoft operates by is by serving "the players who stay like kings and queens."
"We don’t go on vacation just because a competitor is swelling the market. We double down and reward those spending their valuable time with us," he said.
Siege's fourth season (of year 11) will release around the time that GTA 6 comes out in November 2026. Mills teased that there are "some unannounced surprises" that Ubisoft is not disclosing yet, but he said they will "make a splash."
Why there is no Siege 2, at least not yet
Also in the interview, Mills discussed why Ubisoft made Siege X--a new and improved version of the game--instead of Siege 2.
He said "fundamentally rebuilding our entire system is a mountain of work." What Ubisoft came up with in Siege X represents nothing "even close to the level of scale" that the team would aim for with a possible full-on Siege sequel that would "rebuild the entire game."
"The need for doing it is not necessarily there with the cost of shutting the lights off. Because you can’t possibly run both at the same time," Mills said. "You would need the expertise of the team that’s running the game to rebuild it. It’d be really difficult to do.”
The Siege franchise is set to expand further in 2027 with the release of Rainbow Six Siege Tactics, a turn-based tactical game set in the Rainbow Six universe.
