Earlier this month Ubisoft faced substantial backlash for planned "aesthetic changes" headed to its hit tactical shooter, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege. With an expansion into Asian territories planned for the near future, the publisher outlined upcoming art changes to comply with overseas regulations. Essentially censoring various sex, gambling, violence references worldwide, community outrage swiftly followed.
Ubisoft has now detailed plans to revert these aesthetic changes, meaning the upcoming Operation Wind Bastion update won't feature censored assets. Taking to the official Rainbow Six blog, the team cited its "conversation" among the fanbase, promising to keep future "impact to a minimum."
We will begin reverting these changes alongside the launch of Wind Bastion so no player is impacted; we ask you to be patient if some elements remain. We will carefully remove them all to the best of our ability considering the short timeframe and with the lowest impact on the season's launch date and our build stability.
The following statement was also provided to address today's sudden change of stance.
We have been following the conversation with our community closely over the past couple of weeks, alongside regular discussions with our internal Ubisoft team, and we want to ensure that the experience for all our players, especially those that have been with us from the beginning, remains as true to the original artistic intent as possible.
For now, Rainbow Six Siege should retain original art assets worldwide, likely branching off a censored client for select regions at a later date. Although region-specific builds could cause later issues with patches, the move highlights continued attention to the existing player base.
In the meantime, Operation Wind Bastion will deliver two new playable Operators, one multiplayer map, and various other changes. In the meantime, as Rainbow Six Siege's final major update of 2018, there's no better time to get started, starting at just $27 on Amazon.
Rainbow Six Siege Operation Wind Bastion packs some of its best Operators yet
Matt Brown is a senior editor at Future for Windows Central. Following six years of professional consumer technology and gaming coverage, he’s focused on the world of Xbox and Windows PCs. You can follow him on Twitter @mattjbrown.
