The Siege team is excited to continue the Sixth Guardian Program in Y10S1 with a brand new bundle chosen by YOU, the Siege community.

This season, Sixth Guardian is partnering once more with Worldwide Cancer Research, an organization funding visionary, game-changing cancer research around the world to start new cures. The “Sixth Guardian Hope” bundle will release on March 6th and features a full Azami set, as chosen by the Siege community in an online poll. One hundred percent of net proceeds (no less than $6 USD per bundle) will go to Worldwide Cancer Research[www.worldwidecancerresearch.org] to specifically contribute toward funding for cutting-edge breast cancer research.

Starting on March 8th, we invite all Rainbow Six Siege creators and community members to join the movement by streaming or creating social media content over the weekend. We’ve put together a Creator Kit package available via the Ubisoft Creators Program[creatorsprogram.ubisoft.com] for the occasion which includes stream overlays and assets. You can also download the kit here[ubi.li].


This exclusive bundle includes a cosmetics set for Azami, and features her signature sleek suit accented with pink, the universal color for breast cancer. Specifically, the set includes:

• “Sixth Guardian Hope” Uniform
  
• “Sixth Guardian Hope” Headgear
  
• “Sixth Guardian Hope” Background Card
  
• “Sixth Guardian Hope” Charm

The bundle will be available for a limited time.


Worldwide Cancer Research focuses on funding discovery research, the critical first stage of the research journey that uncovers knowledge that can lead to new ways to prevent, diagnose, and treat cancer. Bright ideas come from anywhere, which is why they fund projects anywhere in the world. And they fund research into any type of cancer, because there are over 200 types that all need different cures.

Since 1979, Worldwide Cancer Research has invested over £200 million in more than 2,000 research projects in 35 countries worldwide, leading to some remarkable breakthroughs. But with cancer rates increasing, and global discovery research funding decreasing, it is imperative to push forward faster and fund more new projects every year.

This simply won't be possible without the continued support of incredible community of Curestarters - people who turn their compassion into action by supporting Worldwide Cancer Research’s work - for themselves, for their loved ones, and for the millions of people around the world affected by cancer. Becoming a Curestarter is a positive way to be part of something bigger and to contribute to vital research that will save lives.

Many of you have already become Curestarters by supporting the previous “Sixth Guardian Health” bundle. We invite you to support “Sixth Guardian Hope” and recruit others to become Curestarters to help fund visionary, game-changing research around the world, and take us one step closer to a day when no life is cut short by cancer.

Learn more about Worldwide Cancer Research here[www.worldwidecancerresearch.org].


All net proceeds from your donations will go to Worldwide Cancer Research, with no less than $6 USD per bundle going to the charity.


Once cancer has spread, or metastasized, it often becomes incurable. A pioneering new team of researchers led by Professor Roberta Tasso at the University of Genoa in Italy have an ambitious plan: to find new ways to deliver drugs directly to hard-to-treat breast cancer tumors. By using nanoparticles that occur naturally in our bodies as 'smart bombs', the team hope to be able to knock out tumors even after cancer has spread.


"I am truly delighted and honored that my project has been selected for the fundraising campaign in partnership with Ubisoft and the Rainbow Six Siege community.

This project, while challenging, offers great potential to advance cancer treatment, and it is thanks to your support that we are able to push boundaries in such a high-impact area of research. We are incredibly grateful for your belief in our work, which we hope will have a tangible impact on cancer therapy in the future."

- Professor Roberta Tasso

Together, the Siege community has already raised nearly $100k USD for Worldwide Cancer Research by supporting the “Sixth Guardian Health” bundle for Twitch. Let’s continue to push past that and help our partners support ground-breaking efforts in breast cancer research.

If you’d like to support Worldwide Cancer Research further, you can make direct donations here[www.worldwidecancerresearch.org].


Years of collaborative and pioneering research have led to incredible breakthroughs in how we prevent, diagnose, and treat cancer. But it is still one of the leading causes of death worldwide, and too many people still have to say goodbye to a loved one too soon. In 2022 there were an estimated 9.7 million deaths worldwide from cancer, and currently, this number is predicted to almost double by 2050.
But cutting-edge science gives us hope for the future. By funding more discovery research into any type of cancer, anywhere in the world, Worldwide Cancer Research believes that we can be ready to face the cancer challenges of tomorrow.

"Our vision is to see a day when no life is cut short by cancer. For me, this sums up what most of us fear about cancer. The fear of losing time or a life that we really should have had. This includes the way cancer turns lives completely upside down."

- Dr Helen Rippon, Worldwide Cancer Research Chief Executive


Since the program’s launch in 2020, together with our community, we have raised over $600,000 USD! We’d like to extend our thanks once again to our past Sixth Guardian Partners: AbleGamers[ablegamers.org], Stack Up[www.stackup.org], Indspire[indspire.ca], ILGA World[ilga.org], and Ecologi[ecologi.com].

Together with our partners, we hope to unite the Rainbow Six Siege community and make positive changes outside of our game.

In this latest edition of Designer’s Notes, we are sharing details on the balancing changes process and why we will not be pushing additional changes this season.


We have decided to let the game stabilize for a bit longer than usual in preparation for everything coming and start the new Siege era with more stable data overall. Every patch we release, even though we are building towards a fixed direction, adds more entropy into the mix, making it harder to evaluate the impact of every change. However, we wanted to take this opportunity to share some insights about our thought processes.


To begin with, in the context of strategy and tactics, the defensive team typically holds the advantage. It's like assaulting a fortress; expecting the attacking force to have equal chances of victory as the defending force is unrealistic. Defenders have the privilege of choosing the battlefield; they are essentially playing at home. In a game like Siege, defenders also alter the battlefield every round, while attackers have a mere 180 seconds to analyze and execute a new strategy based on the information gathered, which might only be reliable for a brief period. This is why we aim for a 55% defensive win rate with a 5% tolerance.

The different matrices represent the big picture of the game and help us interpret its current state. We have plenty of them: different ranks, platforms, playlists, and even specific ones per map. Observing an outlier value triggers a discussion, not an immediate action. During these discussions, we focus on the overall vision of the game more than on the outlier. Siege has many moving parts, and even small changes can have significant consequences, which may not become apparent immediately and can take months or even years to fully manifest. This is why we continuously evaluate both new and old changes, as their effects on the game can vary from patch to patch. It's also important to highlight that buffs and nerfs are often two sides of the same coin. Buffing one operator typically means others are indirectly nerfed. As the buffed operator becomes more appealing, others with similar roles become less interesting, which has a similar effect to nerfing them. In reverse, nerfing an operator means that others are indirectly buffed and more appealing to use.

When we see operators with very high presence, we see a reduction on variety. Playing and facing the same operators repeatedly can be boring and feel repetitive. Their ideal presence is around 13%, even though we don't aim strictly for this. If every operator were in their sweet spot data-wise, it would mean that everyone is viable in all situations, making operator selection feel meaningless. This is why we intend to make them situational, so the map, site, intel available, and team composition determine who is the best option. Every operator must be strong in the right situation but with flaws in the wrong one. On the other hand, operators with extremely low presence might be boring, not impactful enough, or simply not fitting into the current meta. And our approach is different depending on the reason.
Regarding win deltas, they mostly represent how the operator is performing in the current meta rather than their inherent strength. We cannot say that Maverick is too weak when he can bypass any wall denial without help, or that Kapkan is too strong when there is always an Ash rushing without droning, leaving attackers one operator down 20 seconds into the round.


Additionally to the hard data retrieved from your in-game matches, our teams also analyze your feedback via different means in order to have the best understanding of the current meta and what you, as players, have to say.

There are two approaches to gather player feedback, one could be considered as indirect and the other as direct. For the former, the feedback is found through the comments you naturally share on social media or other platforms and generally touches broader topics. The latter, on the other hand, requires targeted investigations. The intel is then collected through workshops involving experienced players and community members, topic-specific surveys, and Seasonal surveys. Once gathered, the feedback data is then translated into digestible formats for a better understanding of the community concerns, thoughts and ideas.

We will never say this enough: your feedback matters and changes the game. Please keep on sharing your thoughts on our different social media platforms and our dedicated Seasonal Surveys.