Rainbow Six Siege Won't Go F2P Because Of "Potential Toxicity"

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege isn't a game that we've been putting on our lists of games that could go free-to-play, and it doesn't appear likely that we'll be changing that any time soon.

Rainbow Six Brand Director Alexandre Remy is open to making his game "more accessible and available," but is concerned about team-killing and other bad behavior, the Daily Star reports. While R6 has its share of trolls and team-killers now, Remy is concerned about the effect going fully free-to-play would have on the community:

"A free-to-play game automatically attracts a huge influx of population, not all of them playing the game for sake of winning. Sometimes they play just because it's free and so they get in and that can lead to potential toxicity."

He's not wrong, though what he says is true of any online game, free-to-play or not. It's probably a bigger issue with F2P, admittedly, especially in lower ranks and when a game is new. "Even having a small price helps create a barrier of entry," Remy added, and he might have some data to go on, since R6 was free for a while late last year.

From what I can tell, Rainbow Six Siege is doing quite well and might never have a need to go free-to-play. Then again, things can change, and we'll bookmark this post and come back to it in a year or two if the game actually does go free-to-play, probably under the guise of "offering more freedom" or "providing a better value" or somesuch. We'll assume that the toxicity problem has been fixed at that point and that it's not just being glossed over because Ubisoft is desperate to make a profit.