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Rainbow Six Siege Hits New Player Peak After 'Outbreak'

Rainbow Six Siege is experiencing a resurgence, thanks to some help from the undead.

Ozzie Mejia

March 7, 2018 12:50 PM

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Video game science has proven over the years that people like zombies. They like zombies a lot. So with Rainbow Six Siege unleashing its Operation Chimera update, complete with zombie-killing Outbreak mode, the game appears to have a whole new lease on life.

According to PC Gamer, the Rainbow Six Siege concurrent player count peaked at 176,856 earlier on Wednesday. That's a new record for the game. On top of that, SteamCharts data indicates that the game's Steam audience has tripled, which is more impressive when considering that it does not factor in UPlay users.

This news further indicates a resurgence for Ubisoft's tactical shooter. The esports side of the game is similarly experiencing unprecedented success, with the recent Rainbow Six Siege Invitational racking up nearly 9 million views.

So what's got people interested in Siege all of a sudden? Once again, the big answer is zombies. Outbreak allows players to field their best teams to cure a viral outbreak in the town of Truth or Consequences. While it sounds like a simple zombie game on the surface, it becomes much more interesting with Siege's physics engine that makes just about every object a degree of destructability.

The main PvP multiplayer modes also got a couple of new Operatives. Be sure to read about Lion and Finka before jumping into Outbreak.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?