Ubisoft has kept Rainbow Six Siege relatively under wraps since its debut last year at E3. The developer is ready to peel back that wrapping some with a closed alpha test announcement today. Sign-ups are available now, but only for PC gamers. Thankfully, the system requirements are rather lenient.
Those interested in joining the Rainbow Six Siege closed alpha test should head over to the game’s official website to sign-up. You will have to take a brief survey that asks which platform you play on the most and how much time you’ve spent in the last month on various games like Counter-Strike , Evolve , and Call of Duty .
Rainbow Six Siege will have a Closed Alpha, and we need your help #RainbowSix #R6Alpha http://t.co/h4eXTbycho pic.twitter.com/QsBIeOxpm2
— Rainbow Six (@Rainbow6Game) March 12, 2015
The test is only available for PC gamers in North America and Europe, and you will need an Uplay account to sign-up. If you are selected, you will receive an email with instructions on how to get started.
The closed test for Rainbow Six Siege will be for the multiplayer portion of the game only. Ubisoft is looking to gauge the reaction to the free-form sandbox combat that Siege offers as well as test the online infrastructure.
The alpha will only feature a “small sample” of Rainbow Six Siege . Additional maps, characters, and feature are being held back.
In the video below, Creative Director Xavier Marquis explains that the development team wants to see how gamers react to this new interpretation of the long-running tactical shooter franchise. Doing this during an alpha gives them time to analyze player data and feedback so that the developers can make adjustments to improve the overall experience of the game.
The game is still expected to be a 2015 release for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, but the alpha is only going to be open to PC gamers. The official FAQ explains this is because the PC is the lead platform.
The minimum requirements for the Rainbow Six Siege closed alpha are not particularly steep. The RAM requirement is 8GB, but the video card and CPU requirements are for hardware that is three to five years old. These hardware requirements are expected to be relaxed even more once the game is launched.
- OS: Windows 7, 8, 8.1, x64
- CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K or AMD FX-8120 Eight-Core
- CPU Speed: 3.3 GHz (Recommended), 2.6 GHz (Minimum)
- RAM: 8 GB
- GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 or AMD Radeon HD 7970 / R9 280 X
- VRAM: 2 GB
You will also need about to be willing to download around 7 to 8 GB of data to your hard drive.
Rainbow Six Siege is taking a new approach toward the tactical shooter by going with the destructible environments and a sandbox approach toward letting players decide how to attack the bad guys or the bad guys defend against the cops. It should prove interesting to see how these changes pay off in actual gameplay following the positive reaction to last year’s E3 gameplay footage.
[Images via Rainbow Six Siege ]
