In order to release Rainbow Six: Siege in China, Ubisoft is censoring its game even before the release itself. After all, China has stricter rules about what the Depiction of violence and the like. However, the developer and publisher plans to publish this self-censorship not only in China, but worldwide. The Rainbow Six community is anything but enthusiastic about this news.

The publisher and developer describes its plan in an unassuming blog post titled “Aesthetic Changes”. Here Ubisoft goes into detail about the planned cosmetic changes for the Chinese market and explains why they are coming worldwide.

Violence, blood, gambling and erotica fly out

In the future version of Rainbow Six: Siege, Ubisoft will change a number of icons, and also the Customize levels. Skulls disappear from the maps just like gambling machines, blood and erotic-looking neon signs.

Despite the adaptation of the melee icon, the Melee animation – a knife attack – unchanged, by the way. UbiNoty confirmed this in a thread on Reddit. And since, according to Ubisoft, these are only cosmetic changes, the gambling machines seem to be removed from the maps, but the Lootboxes – some of which are only available for real money – can still be purchased.

A single, global version…

Now, there might not be any criticism from the community if Ubisoft were to make these changes exclusively for China. But instead of developing a seperate version of the game that complies with Chinese laws, the developer simply adapts all.

He justifies this with the statement that one can no double work wants to do. In this way, it would be possible to react more quickly to problems. Ubisoft also states future-proofing in the blog post. Any further changes will adhere to the “global regulations” that Ubisoft wants to work towards. The team assures that the gameplay will not be affected in any way. The studio will only change the design and the visuals.

…which is different in China

Followed on Reddit by the Outrage without delay and Ubisoft came forward to explain the decisions. Here, however, it only gets more complicated. Because according to a statement from community manager UbiNoty, the Chinese version will be will differ from the global one. So there will be two different builds after all. However, these differences are only of a technical nature.

Pride and achievement – Ubisoft defends grind in Rainbow Six: Siege like EA

The Chinese version will have a Region-lock have and use other data centers. So you won’t be able to play with Chinese players, nor will the Chinese version of Rainbow Six: Siege have access to the data of the Western version. Not even VPNs should be able to bypass this limitation.

The corresponding forum on Reddit hardly knows any other topic at the moment. Players complain about the planned changes and the corresponding posts meet with strong approval. Ubisoft’s statements, on the other hand, are very negative recorded.

The most popular post lately is almost a cliché: “I have officially uninstalled Siege”. writes user CoupeontheBeat, by his own admission a gamer from the very beginning. In the replies to this post, users get upset about Ubisoft’s greed and hypocrisy.

Behind the Pixels, Episode 6 – Feedback: Players have something to say (Plus)

User micheal213, for example, recalls the times when Ubisoft talked about how the blood effects give the maps a certain feel. To this, colonelminotaur replies that the developer probably likes the feeling of money better. The user -saltymangos-, on the other hand, specifically criticizes the removal of the Gambling machines from the game:

“”Ubisoft is like, let’s take gambling machines out of the game, but KEEP the real gambling lootboxes.”” “

In general, players demand that Ubisoft two seperate versions of Rainbow Six: Siege. Then the developer could release the title in China, but nothing would change in the West. So far, Ubisoft has not commented on the criticism. However, it can be assumed that the developer will take a stand after the weekend due to the reaction of the fans.

Big Growth:Rainbow Six: Siege has more than 40 million players