Solid Snake is coming to Rainbow Six Siege.
Not as a skin for an already-existing character, but a fully-fledged operator with his own unique loadout and play style. When GameSpot talked to Ubisoft Montreal about the future of Siege for our 10th anniversary documentary, we didn’t quite imagine a crossover of this magnitude.
Although Ubisoft’s Siege team has done crossovers in the past, this is the first time a character outside of Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy universe has joined Team Rainbow. I sat down with key developers from Ubisoft and Konami to learn how a collaboration like this comes about and why Solid Snake is a perfect fit for Rainbow Six Siege.
Snake gathering intel with his Soliton Radar
But before we get into that, let’s address the bandana-wearing elephant in the room: Yes, actor David Hayter has reprised his role as Solid Snake for this crossover. For the Siege team, this was non-negotiable.
“It was really a core objective to get Hayter for the English VO because it’s […] iconic,” Siege creative director Josh Mills told me, and he’s right. Hearing David Hayter growl, “Reloading” or “Enemy detected” in the middle of a match is undeniably cool and, frankly, it just wouldn’t be Solid Snake without his iconic voice.
Siege’s development team, with support from Konami, went to great lengths to ensure that Solid Snake fits into Siege’s lethal, competitive gameplay while staying true to his character. Snake wields a silenced Tacit 45 handgun with his knife at the ready because, as we all know, in close-quarters combat, a knife can sometimes be more useful than a gun. By doing this, Snake can hold a knife at the same time and still keep the gun steady at the same time. That way, he can instantly switch between a gun battle and a knife fight.
Solid Snake’s unique gadget is designed around intel gathering for the Attackers–the Soliton Radar displays a minimap of the immediate area and can give general information about Defender activity and their gadgets. Intel is key in Siege, and Snake’s unique ability could push players into a sneakier playstyle that revolves around gathering information.
Snake readying his knife while taking shots at Ela
This wasn’t Ubisoft’s only idea for Solid Snake’s ability, though. According to Mills, the team prototyped a cardboard box ability, which worked about as poorly as you’d imagine. Stealth–at least in the way Snake relies on it in the Metal Gear Solid games–doesn’t really work in Siege. Hiding in a box would just make Snake an easy target for the defending team. As Mills put it, “To make it grounded in our universe, we had to make [an] adjustment, but that prototype 100% exists.”
Long-time Metal Gear producer Yuji Korekado said the team at Konami felt that even though Solid Snake and Team Rainbow exist within different intellectual properties, they often share the same goals: To protect people and save the world.
Perhaps the most exciting thing about this crossover is that Sam Fisher and Solid Snake will be in the same game together for the first time ever. For those who don’t follow Siege, Sam Fisher–codenamed Zero–was added to the roster a few years ago.
This opportunity was not lost on Korekado either: “What really sold us on this […] was the idea of having Sam Fisher and Snake together. As a fan and a gamer I think it could be really interesting.”
The prospect of Sam Fisher and Solid Snake teaming up–let alone shaking hands like they do in the trailer–is an interesting idea, indeed. Especially if you were a Metal Gear Solid and/or Splinter Cell nerd in the early 2000s like me–although most of my imagined scenarios were formed around who would win in a fight. It was a rivalry that Ubisoft Montreal kind of endorsed, at least internally, when it tried to position Splinter Cell as the “Metal Gear Solid 2 killer.”
Sam Fisher’s official Rainbow Six Siege art
Despite the friendly rivalry between Splinter Cell and Metal Gear Solid, both franchises referenced each other in subsequent games, and many of Splinter Cell’s original developers spoke of Kojima Productions and the Metal Gear series with reverence.
That reverence for Metal Gear Solid persists at Ubisoft today, and it isn’t limited to Solid Snake. Alongside themed customization items and Operator skins based on beloved characters like Meryl and Revolver Ocelot, Siege’s Dual Front game mode is getting a Metal Gear Solid makeover. We didn’t get a chance to play this take on the mode, but sections of the map look as though they’ve been pulled from Metal Gear Solid 2’s interior spaces. I’ll certainly be checking this mode out, but I can’t imagine it would pull me away from the standard game modes for too long.
I rarely get excited for collaborations and crossovers these days. From Fortnite’s oversaturation of skins from every conceivable franchise, to Magic The Gathering’s media-hopping Universes Beyond sets, a lot of brands seem more interested in lifting recognizable characters from other franchises rather than expanding on their own worlds. Sure, there are some standouts like Fortnite’s excellent Simpsons season and MTG’s Final Fantasy set, but it’s hard not to feel a little cynical about the practice when new crossovers are getting announced on a near-daily basis.
Solid Snake’s loadout
Despite this baggage, I found myself grinning from ear to ear seeing all the attention and care Ubisoft Montreal has put into this collaboration, and it got me thinking about what makes this different. It comes down to the intent. Yes, Ubisoft is trying to court Metal Gear Solid fans, but Snake isn’t just a skin–like other Operators, he brings new strategies and tactics to Siege that also pay homage to the character’s rich history. His implementation feels authentic to his series while fitting within Rainbow Six Siege’s pre-established universe.
Or maybe it is just because I’ve wanted to see Sam and Snake shake hands for years. Either way, Siege’s Year 11 is off to a strong start.
