{"id":477431,"date":"2026-02-15T23:56:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T23:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/477431\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T23:56:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T23:56:16","slug":"unveiling-rainbow-six-sieges-metal-gear-collab-year-11-more-with-new-creative-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/477431\/","title":{"rendered":"Unveiling Rainbow Six Siege’s Metal Gear Collab, Year 11 & More With New Creative Director"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rainbow Six Siege just launched some truly groundbreaking announcements regarding Year 11 of the popular title. Whether you\u2019re a casual player, an esports player or even a Metal Gear Solid fan, there is something to be excited about during the next year of Rainbow Six Siege.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the major announcement at the Six Invitational in Paris, France, CGM was not only able to pick the brains of the Ubisoft team behind Rainbow Six Seige esports<\/a>, go hands-on with Metal Gear Solid\u2019s Solid Snake, the newest Operator to join Rainbow Six Siege<\/a>, see sneak peeks of what is coming to Rainbow Six Mobile\u2019s global release<\/a>, and even get a look at the new Calypso map<\/a>, but we also sat down with the brand-new Creative Director, Joshua Mills<\/a>, who was able to walk us through a lot of the changes coming to Year 11. <\/p>\n

Mills gushed about the Konami collaboration, gave us some insight into how the Metal Gear Solid<\/a> partnership worked, and even chatted with us about Rainbow Six Siege Year 11 changes like balancing, Rank 3.0 and the game\u2019s new meta. <\/p>\n

\"YouTube<\/p>\n

So, first off, congratulations on the new role as Creative Director of Rainbow Six Siege. So what does that mean for you now? What has changed from Game Director to Creative Director?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Joshua Mills: I mean, from the actual overlook of the game and stuff, as the Game Director, I focused on taking the vision of the Creative Director and implementing that in the gameplay features and overall gameplay experience. At this point, as the Creative Director, I\u2019ll be kind of helping manage and direct the entire vision of all aspects of the game. This is our animes and CGIs that we see, and stuff like this, helping with every core content director on the team through all the different disciplines. So just like the unity of all that together, as well as still working with our new Game Director.<\/p>\n

So, what does that pressure feel like?<\/p>\n

Joshua Mills: Honestly, a live game, like Siege, it\u2019s a different beast, and it kind of tempers you. It takes a little bit to get on that treadmill because the thing is, I joined over four years ago, and we\u2019re getting close to five years at this point. It\u2019s kind of like jumping on a treadmill that\u2019s already going, right, and you\u2019ve got to get up to speed and get kind of comfortable. But once you hit that rhythm, the pressures of it and all the different things like this, it becomes almost like a normal situation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Because we\u2019re shipping every three months, you get comfortable with it. And I\u2019ve been heavily integrated in Siege for over 10 years<\/a>, just playing the game, but even working with Alex Karpazis, I\u2019ve been shadowing him for over a year, and we\u2019ve been working together, and we work together incredibly well. So like he\u2019s made the transition really optimal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Unveiling<\/p>\n

So we\u2019re at the Six Invitational<\/a> for Rainbow Six Siege. What do you think of the tournament so far? Did you actually get to go out and watch it? I know you\u2019re busy here!\u00a0<\/p>\n

Joshua Mills: I didn\u2019t get to watch as much as I would have liked. I keep looking at the screens even when I shouldn\u2019t be, because there\u2019s a screen right there and right there. But I did get to see the opening ceremony and this year, the chorus and the music. Did you catch that?<\/p>\n

Every time it feeds the soul, it\u2019s such a moment. So I was happy I got to do that. I\u2019ll catch as much as I can.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Do you have any predictions for the weekend during the Six Invitational?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Joshua Mills: While I was happy to see the first game go to three maps\u2014that was really good to see. I\u2019ll say this, I\u2019m not allowed to pick favourites. But because we\u2019re in Paris, it would be great to see a French team on that stage.<\/p>\n

Safe answer, but I like it. In your opinion, what makes Rainbow Six Siege a great esports title?<\/p>\n

Joshua Mills: Oh, the intensity of the game! The thing that makes Siege just an awesome game and then even better as an esport is that you could have the best laid out strategy. You could train forever on everything that\u2019s going on, and then the second you\u2019re in the lobby, it changes, and then it\u2019s like, \u201cWell, wait, they did a setup we haven\u2019t seen before,\u201d or \u201cWhat\u2019s that doing there,\u201d and then you\u2019ve got to adapt and that\u2019s the love of game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Seeing that, or if someone gets a lucky spawn beat going off, the entire plan is shattered, \u201cWe gotta adapt right now.\u201d So I think that\u2019s it, and it\u2019s just like when you\u2019re playing the game, every round is different, every match is different. It\u2019s the same thing on the stage; you just never know what\u2019s going to happen.<\/p>\n

\"Unveiling<\/p>\n

Jumping over to the Rainbow Six Siege Year 11 updates, can you explain a little bit about the new balancing meta that you\u2019re moving to?<\/p>\n

Joshua Mills: Oh, absolutely. Back in Munich, we were talking about this update to the balancing philosophy. This is really for us to get in tune with our community on this and deliver essentially what they\u2019re asking for and the needs there, as well as focusing on the excitement and fun of the game. If we go in and we\u2019re able to shake the meta a little bit, all the creativity of our players comes out in droves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They start coming up with all sorts of new patterns, all sorts of new strategies and stuff like that, and we\u2019d love to see it. We\u2019re even seeing it on the SI [Six Invitational] stage, because normally we don\u2019t push updates as big as we did in 4.2 of Year 10\u2026the most recent update, because we see Thorn on the stage like that, that\u2019s amazing to see, and it kind of shakes everything up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the goal here is to make it exciting. Every update should be exciting. You shouldn\u2019t be like, \u201cOh no. My Operator is now not\u2026\u201d No, your operator is going to be awesome. They\u2019re going to have a good time, and we\u2019re going to see what\u2019s going to happen this season and what is the story of this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Unveiling<\/p>\n

How is Rainbow Six Siege changing from Rank 2.0 to Rank 3.0?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Joshua Mills: So Rank 2.0 and 3.0, there\u2019s a lot of learnings and a lot of different things we\u2019ve gone through through that experiment of trying out a bunch of stuff there, but then more so, we actually, again back in Munich, we held a workshop with a bunch of key creators and community members to showcase Rank 3.0 in its earliest stages so that we could get the feedback and understand exactly how is this going to meet the needs? Is this aligning well? And then we took that back to the team, and then went back into essentially development mode and cleaned it up and made some adjustments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Essentially, when it comes down to it, your rank is your MMR [matchmaking rating]. That\u2019s it, no more confusing stuff, no more hidden MMR or anything like this. So what you see is what you get. If you\u2019re gold, it\u2019s going to be gold, and you\u2019re going to fight within your rank. But the one thing we want to add, and this is, I think, this is really awesome, is that the rewards we used to do, so like you could get a headgear or something, but you had to get to a certain rank in order to get that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We\u2019re changing some of that to almost be like a seasonal progression for you. So your rank is your MMR. That\u2019s exactly what that is. But then, as you play, you can be rewarded. So maybe you\u2019re just starting into Siege, and you\u2019re copper. That\u2019s fine. We\u2019re going to keep rewarding you for showing up and trying and practicing and putting the effort in, because ultimately that\u2019s what really matters, and that\u2019s the only way to climb.<\/p>\n

The choice is being made in Rainbow Six Siege to release one Operator per season going forward. Do you think there\u2019s ever going to be a point where Siege has too many Operators?<\/p>\n

Joshua Mills: Yeah, there\u2019s a lot of. Operators. But at the end of the day, I think it\u2019ll come down to the fact that\u2014we talked about this a little bit\u2014depending on who you talk to, we have fridge or freezer of operator ideas, and it is extensive, like this thing just goes on for miles as far as the different ideas. So I don\u2019t think we\u2019re going to like run out of ideas on what we can do in the game, especially how we address the meta of an evolving, living game like Siege.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Do you think that you\u2019re ever going to have to start removing Operators in Rainbow Six Siege?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Joshua Mills: I don\u2019t think we\u2019ll do that, no. Because I mean, that\u2019s like telling you to pick your favourite child.<\/p>\n

\"Unveiling<\/p>\n

Literally right?<\/p>\n

Joshua Mills: Our Operator remasters were exactly that, where Operators had fallen, essentially exhausted their balancing levers, and stuff like this. And they weren\u2019t being played, and they didn\u2019t fit into the game anymore for multiple reasons. But instead of removing them, we invested in them to bring them back on, and every one of our remasters has been on the stage, which is freaking awesome.<\/p>\n

So, is there a big difference between which Operators in Rainbow Six Siege are the most popular among esports players, more casual players, and as a player yourself?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Joshua Mills: So, there\u2019s definitely a difference, because depending on where you are in your journey in Siege, you\u2019re going to have very different metas coming up. You\u2019re going to be playing essentially different games. But at the pro level, they\u2019ll be going after lots of utility, lots of functionality and versatility. At different ranks, you\u2019ll see less of that. Like some Operators are less popular in lower ranks when it comes to. Myself, do you mean more like where\u2019s my preference?<\/p>\n

Yes, which Rainbow Six Siege Operators do you prefer to play?<\/p>\n

Joshua Mills:\u00a0 So the funny part about me is I don\u2019t play meta usually because I play fantasy. And that\u2019s the thing that kind of locks me in. So if I think an Operator is cool just because they\u2019re cool, I\u2019m going to play them regardless. I will try to help the team, of course, I\u2019m going to try to serve my team and stuff like this. But at the end of the day, if, let\u2019s say, this entry Operator is statistically performing better than this entry operator, but I like the character of this one more, I\u2019m we\u2019re going to play this one.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always loved Thermite. I\u2019m not going to swear on the thing, but he\u2019s got a perfect line that I love that he says, so I absolutely love Thermite. Smoke has always been a fan favourite of mine, too, on defence. But I have been changing a little bit more, going back into Maestro and Echo. I\u2019m going to rant for a second\u2026<\/p>\n

\"Unveiling<\/p>\n

That\u2019s okay, please do!<\/p>\n

Joshua Mills: Our team, like inside the studio, we have this thing called STL. It\u2019s a tournament amongst the developers of Siege, and we can compete against each other, and Danny, who is walking by right now, he was in SDL as well. But anyway, we go ahead, and we compete against each other, and this is where I got to pull out some sick Echo plays, and I loved it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Because again, they didn\u2019t expect it. They had read our team and understood what we had been doing the whole season, and we didn\u2019t play the Echo. We waited until the finale to start bowling them out, and then they had to scramble, and it was great.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When it comes to Metal Gear Solid\u2019s Solid Snake coming to Rainbow Six Siege as an Operator, as a developer and then as a player, what do you think about it all?<\/p>\n

Joshua Mills: Solid Snake<\/a> is incredible. Just as a developer, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And I can\u2019t stress that enough. It\u2019s beyond Snake as well. It\u2019s the fact that we can have Snake and Sam together. It\u2019s like the most nerdy dream ever possible, and it\u2019s amazing.<\/p>\n

So, as a huge fan of the franchise\u2014but a lot of people on the team are huge fans of the franchise\u2014this has been a dream collaboration for us. As a player in the game and seeing how he fits into Siege, I\u2019m super excited about that because he kind of comes in as an in-game leader sort of Operator. Amazing at getting intel, helping people get into the building, but then being essentially that infiltration specialist that he is and sneaking up on you and making that jump on the roamers. It\u2019s awesome.<\/p>\n

\"Unveiling<\/p>\n

How did that partnership between Konami and Ubisoft come to be, then, especially getting Snake and Sam on screen together?<\/p>\n

Joshua Mills: So at the end of the day, whenever it was brought up to me, Alex sat me down and was like, \u201cHey, so Snake in Siege.\u201d I was like, \u201cWhat?\u201d And that was two years ago.<\/p>\n

And then, essentially about a year and a half ago, everything was all green that we were good to go. And there was passion on essentially both sides. Konami was super excited. They saw the natural fit, how it could organically work into Siege. And then we were off to the races.<\/p>\n

They provided us a ridiculous amount of resources to be able to build from this and pull from this. Of course, we\u2019re nerds. We had tons of resources because we love the franchise too. And then this obsession for us all to get it right and be like, serve the character justice.<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, now, it is our kind of reimagining of Solid Snake in the Rainbow Six universe, but every detail counted, every little thing that had to go into it, we were all being perfectionists, and I think that\u2019s going to show when people get their hands on it.<\/p>\n

So why was Metal Gear Solid\u2019s Solid Snake the right choice to bring somebody from the outside into Rainbow Six Siege?<\/p>\n

Joshua Mills: Oh, I think it kind of feels already a natural fit because of his elite prowess, of what he does and how good he is at what he does. It fits the exact criteria to be a Rainbow Operator, so making that connection was very natural. And it just, again, match made in heaven. It had to happen.<\/p>\n

\"Unveiling<\/p>\n

Can you tell us a little bit about Solid Snake\u2019s loadout in Rainbow Six Siege and how it was settled on by your team and Konami, if they were involved?<\/p>\n

Joshua Mills: So the loadout, like again, because every detail matters. We definitely were looking at, \u201cOkay, what makes the most sense?\u201d And immediately when you look at it, you\u2019re like, \u201cOkay, an F2 100% makes sense. The PMR90A2, that weapon is as well really reminiscent of a kit that the Snake would be running.<\/p>\n

And then lastly, the TACIT .45. I mean, he has to have a wetworks pistol. And we gave him one. And there\u2019s a small little detail on it, just as a fun thing, because we obviously had to keep this collaboration under wraps for a long time.<\/p>\n

So the codename for Solid Snake internally was Diamond. And on the TACIT .45, you\u2019ll actually see diamonds on it, etched into it, because we got so used to calling him that. And we were doing rehearsals for the panel, and we actually kept on saying the wrong name and kept on saying Diamond.<\/p>\n

Was there anything that was considered for Solid Snake\u2019s Rainbow Six Siege loadout that didn\u2019t make it that you can tell us about?<\/p>\n

Joshua Mills: Okay, so we went a little crazy on this. Normally, we would only issue one new weapon. That was one of the things we were going to do, which was the TACIT .45. But the reason we released the PMR the previous season, in Year 10, Season 4, was because we knew we wanted to give it to him. So we kind of cheated by getting two weapons on him.<\/p>\n

\"Unveiling<\/p>\n

Do you think this is going to open the door for even more collaborations outside the Rainbow Six Siege or Tom Clancy universe?<\/p>\n

Joshua Mills: So I think on that note, one thing: if you do it once, it\u2019s a one-off. If you do it twice, it\u2019s a pattern. And now you\u2019ve got to have a system in place.<\/p>\n

So in-game, you can actually see when you select them, it says \u201cIconic,\u201d and then it\u2019ll say on Solid Snake, you\u2019ll see the Metal Gear Solid, and then on Zero [Sam Fisher] as well. It now says \u201cIconic.\u201d It says Tom Clancy\u2019s Splinter Cell<\/a>. So we put that system in place for the idea that this could happen again.<\/p>\n

With that said, we will be very strict about doing this sort of thing. Solid Snake in the Metal Gear franchise was, again, very organic. Collaboration made a lot of sense, and it just kind of works. But protecting the Rainbow Six universe and everything that goes into it, and to keep it grounded and keep it like the reality in the canon that it needs to be, it\u2019s something we take very seriously. So we will be pretty strict about how we do anything like this in the future.<\/p>\n

And then the last question is a two-parter. What is the thing you\u2019re most excited about? Both about the Metal Gear Solid and Rainbow Six Siege collaboration, and then just about the changes to Year 11 in general.<\/p>\n

Joshua Mills: It\u2019s kind of a tricky thing because the thing I\u2019m most excited about is announcing everything on Sunday. Because we held on to this for a long time, and to be able to see the reaction and for me specifically to see Metal Gear Solid fans see how much we cared about doing this. I think that\u2019s important because we put all that care into Rainbow, and we want to show that we can do that with this franchise.<\/p>\n

\"YouTube<\/p>\n

How did it feel dropping that teaser then?<\/p>\n

Joshua Mills: I mean, nothing got done for the next hour and a half because everyone was just like checking the comments and everything like that. So that\u2019s definitely part of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And the second part, oh, man. So Year 11 is a really special year for us because we\u2019re building a new cadence of content. Now, I\u2019m being a developer nerd about this, but what that means is by Year 11 Season 3, our full cadence structure will be in place. This is like Legend of Vision will be activating targeted map updates, all the different features that we\u2019re bringing online. <\/p>\n

But this is like the new bedrock of how we do seasons going forward. So that sets a really good foundation for everything to come. We\u2019ll have key features that drop on top of that. But the point being, every season we\u2019ll have plenty of stuff going on every three weeks. It\u2019s going to be fantastic.<\/p>\n

\"Unveiling<\/p>\n

Rainbow Six Siege Year 11 will be here soon, so you won\u2019t have to wait long to get your hands on Metal Gear Solid\u2019s Solid Snake, or any of the other updates coming to the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rainbow Six Siege just launched some truly groundbreaking announcements regarding Year 11 of the popular title. Whether you\u2019re…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[49,48,61],"class_list":["post-477431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}