Over the past 10 years, Rainbow Six Siege X has accumulated a massive roster of 76 playable Operators. It’s an impressive feat, continuously adding greater depth and variety to the Ubisoft multiplayer shooter’s already tense and tactical gameplay. But even after all this time, none of these new Operators have come from outside of the Tom Clancy universe — until now, at least.
At the Six Invitationals Siege esports tournament in Paris, Ubisoft pulled back the curtain on its previously teased collaboration with Konami to bring none other than beloved Metal Gear hero Solid Snake to Siege as a new Operator this year. Given Siege‘s history, any non-Clancy guest character would certainly have been a noteworthy addition, but it’s particularly special to have Snake join the series, given his status as a gaming icon.
Speaking with MobileSyrup in Paris, Konami and lead Siege developer Ubisoft Montreal offered some greater insight into the entire Snake collaboration. To start, Konami notes that it was actually Ubisoft that had pitched the partnership, the origins of which Ubisoft says actually go back years ago to when it introduced fellow stealth legend, Splinter Cell‘s Sam Fisher, to Siege as an Operator named Zero.
“It was honestly when we were bringing Zero to the game — the question came back up years ago, where, if we were able to do [a guest Operator] again, who would it be? Then everyone said ‘Snake!’ says creative director Joshua Mills with a laugh.
As veteran Metal Gear producer and programmer Yuji Korekado points out, Konami and Ubisoft had actually previously collaborated to bring an Assassin’s Creed outfit to Metal Gear Solid 4, and Metal Gear Solid 4 clothing to Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood. “We were very grateful for that collaboration, so we went and listened to what they had to say,” he says.
Of course, Metal Gear fans will know that there are several versions of the series’ iconic hero that could have been included in Siege, from the young and spry Solid Snake in the first two MGS games to his weathered, rapidly degrading counterpart, Old Snake, in MGS4. That’s to say nothing of the character who originally used the Naked Snake moniker, the hero-turned-villain known as Big Boss, who starred in several prequel games, including MGS 3 and V. But for Konami, the choice was pretty clear.
“When the team came to us, we had the choice of including either Solid Snake or Naked Snake. And we thought that Solid Snake is a better fit for the Rainbow Six Siege universe,” says Korekado. Knowing that Siege is set in a “parallel world,” he notes that Konami thought it would be interesting for an older, grizzled Sam Fisher to meet the version of Snake from the couple of years between Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 2.
Once it was decided that this iteration of Snake would be the Operator in question, Ubisoft and Konami began discussing what, exactly, that would entail. Throughout their collaboration, which spanned about a year, Korekado says he was surprised by Ubisoft’s in-depth pitches.
“This time, they weren’t only going to introduce a new Operator, they were going to introduce a lot of other items for this collaboration — to the point that honestly, we were a bit taken aback by the sheer number of stuff they wanted to introduce into the game,” he says with a laugh. “We were worried whether we were going to make it on time or not, but they basically proposed a roadmap, which we worked on together, including the time we needed to review a lot of things and the time they needed to actually come up with the things. So we were convinced.”
Korekado also praised the “great job” that Ubisoft did in terms of researching Metal Gear. “They loved the IP, so there was really nothing we had to push against. It was more sometimes that they would pitch ideas, and maybe we were like, ‘Okay, for the Metal Gear fans, this would be perhaps more interesting, or this would be more in character.’ So it was like fine-tuning their ideas.”
As Mills explains, the Ubisoft team didn’t take this “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” lightly, leading to lively meetings within the studio. “At one point, we actually had people bringing their own collection of stuff that they had, whether it be books, art books, or different things from home to the studio, and we were working on all that stuff together. But that’s the kind of energy that was around it. Everyone knew how big of a deal this was, and everyone knew how much we wanted to do justice to the character.”
Kept you waiting, huh?
For Konami, there were a few key elements of Snake that needed to carry over into Siege. “In terms of the character, we wanted to preserve the design, so the model, the visuals, the face, etc. But that’s a given. What we really focused on was the animation, so all of these mannerisms that make Snake look like Snake,” explains character artist Satoshi Takemura.
“We really put a lot of emphasis on the way he holds his weapon or the expressions that need to be in a certain way. So that’s something that I was really, really particular about when I was doing the review.”
All of these little details are immediately evident as we’re shown a preview of Snake before Invitationals. For one, his main weapon is the Tacit .45, a suppressed handgun with a reflex sight that calls to mind the many hours of exploring Big Shell in MGS2 or the Soviet jungle of MGS3 while quietly trying to line up headshots. Snake’s main gadget, meanwhile, is the Soliton Radar, which lets him scan the map to identify enemy locations, and these callouts are part of a wider batch of newly recorded lines from fan-favourite Canadian-American Snake actor, David Hayter.
And in keeping with the spirit of Metal Gear, Snake’s second gadget slot is actually an empty On-Site Procurement (OSP) Pouch, allowing him to loot fallen Operators for their gear. It certainly helps convey the ethos of Metal Gear‘s “tactical espionage action” slogan, where Snake would be thrown into a mission site and forced to make do with equipment he’d find throughout the levels.
“[Konami was] really amazing straight out of the gate, where they’re like, ‘Listen, this is Rainbow Six, a first-person shooter — you come up with whatever it is that makes sense for your universe.” And that’s what we did,” says Mills. “The goal was that every single part of this Operator had to drip that franchise, everything from the exact way the primary gadget looks, it feels, it sounds — everything had to be there, even the loadout. So the loadout, we have the PMR [rifle] and the Tacit — all key staples of things you would see with Solid Snake.”
“The collaboration has a lot of items and all those items were carefully reviewed on our end. So even the little lines of the weapons are really, really super precise,” explains Takemura. “The team was incredible. The team at Ubisoft, they were really, really helpful, and they were receiving everything.”
For Mills, the highlight of working on Snake was getting to witness the synergy of Soliton Radar’s mechanics and audio design during Siege matches. “One of the key things about it is that when Precision Mode is activated and there is a threat in range and you get notified of the exact location of where they’re looking — you get the sound,” he says enthusiastically, referring to Metal Gear‘s signature Alert cue.
“I remember being in the play session, there was a couple of us that knew it was there, and the first time it went off, the entire room blew up. That’s the thing — that’s the magic of that franchise, being able to do that. So those moments are probably some of my favourites when we’re in the trenches building these things and figuring things out, but then that excitement and energy comes.”
Of course, this also meant that some Metal Gear elements had to be reimagined for Siege. For one, the multiplayer shooter isn’t a melee-intensive game, so Metal Gear‘s signature close-quarters combat (CQC) doesn’t quite apply here. That said, we still get the classic visual of Snake holding his knife below his handgun so he’s ready to switch to stabbing in an instant. Amusingly, Mills also mentions that the team experimented with Snake getting to hide in Metal Gear‘s iconic cardboard box, but it unfortunately just didn’t fit in the world of Siege.
“It doesn’t make a lot of sense in Siege, because at the end of the day, our players know every inch of a map. If they see a cardboard box, that thing is getting lit up!” he says with a laugh. “But I will say this: we did the prototype. The prototype exists — we had cloaking on it so that it would be blended and stuff.”
Expanding the universes — in more ways than one
And of course, both Konami and Ubisoft are keenly aware of the larger significance of this crossover: that it directly brings Snake and Sam Fisher together. For Korekado, who has been working on Metal Gear since 2001’s MGS2, this team-up is particularly exciting.
“As a gamer, what I’m looking forward to the most, honestly, is just seeing Sam Fisher and Snake together!” he says with a laugh. “Because they were never together on the screen, we are really looking forward to seeing what the users actually think about it and how they’re going to have them interact with each other and everything that’s going to come from this collaboration.”
Mills teases that this narrative in question will involve a “standalone kind of capsule story” about Zero calling in an old friend, Solid Snake, for a critical mission in the Redacted event, a limited‑time 4v4 infiltration mode. And Year 11 will also mark the end of Siege‘s 6v6 Dual Front mode, which Ubisoft is sending off with a special “Last Assignment” event inspired by the original 1998 Metal Gear Solid game and featuring Operator skins based on characters like classic Solid Snake, Meryl, Revolver Ocelot and Grey Fox.
“People have been dreaming about this for years — gamers all over the world, ourselves included, just being like, ‘What if?’” says Mills. “And being able to actually express that and bring that to the screen, because it’s such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us, especially as developers, as fans, we wanted to hit all the notes we could and get everything in there.”
There’s a lot to look forward to even based on the fun interactions we’ve seen between the characters in both the collaboration teaser, in which Zero makes a Codec call, and the reveal trailer, in which they properly meet, fight some soldiers and Snake drops a riff on his classic “Kept you waiting, huh?” line.
For Korekado, this playfulness speaks to the larger charm and personality of Metal Gear, and he hopes that it will also encourage Siege players to check out some of Snake’s adventures.
“For Konami and our IP, one thing we would love to see happening is people seeing this weird old man who’s always talking about cardboard boxes and maybe people will think, ‘Okay, this is kind of interesting and kind of fun,’ and perhaps they will become interested in the character or in the IP, and then it will be a lovely collaboration this way.”
Year 11 of Siege begins on March 3 with the Snake-focused Season 1, Operation Silent Hunt.
Rainbow Six Siege X is free-to-play on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC and Amazon Luna.
Image credit: Ubisoft/Konami
