'You're Going to Take a Hit': Rainbow Six Siege Director Bracing for GTA 6 Launch Impact, Promises Players Who Stick Around Will Be Served 'Like Kings and Queens'

Ubisoft has discussed how it is bracing for the launch of Grand Theft Auto 6, and plans to reward Rainbow Six Siege players who stick around "like kings and queens."

Despite still being several months away, the impact of GTA 6's launch this November is already being felt throughout the video game industry, with other game publishers crowding their own releases into September and early October in order to steer well clear.

Currently, no other publisher (apart from Nintendo and its The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake) seems ready to brave November with a big-budget launch of their own. But what about live-service games which have to keep going during the peak of GTA 6's interest? Well, it's expected that they will likely see their own numbers dip.

"We've got a massive launch coming with GTA," acknowledged Joshua Mills, creative director of Ubisoft's long-lived Rainbow Six Siege, in conversation with The Game Business. Launched back in 2015, it continues to be enjoyed by a dedicated audience today — though even Mills admits that he expects many of these players to dip out and try Rockstar's blockbuster when it finally arrives.

"It doesn’t matter what genre you're in – you're going to take a hit when that drops," Mills continued. "People are going to play it, and then they’ll come back. Heck, all of us are going to play it. It's about being smart with your expectations so you can keep the team and HQ aligned. If the team sees player numbers dip, they can get anxious, but it's generally temporary."

And for those who do stick around, it sounds like Ubisoft's team is planning one of the best times to play in years.

"Our golden rule is to serve the players who stay like kings and queens," Mills concluded. "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. Funnily enough, Season Four will drop right around that time. That shifts up the game in different ways. We actually have some unannounced surprises held back to make a splash."

It's an intriguing tactic: not deliberately ceding ground to GTA 6, even while acknowledging the inevitable interest in the game that will likely deflate Siege's own player numbers — temporarily, at least. I'll be interesting to see what other live-service games might do, too.