Rainbow Six: Siege has no campaign, developer says

Rainbow Six: Siege won't have "a story mode per se," an Ubisoft developer said at an EGX 2015 panel, meaning this franchise joins the trend of heavy hitting shooters eschewing a singleplayer campaign.

Scott Mitchell, the game's art director, said that players will have a training session "where you get to experience different operators and their devices," and that players may face off against enemy AI fighters "in co-op through all the maps.

"You can customize matches, so that's what we're offering on the single-player side of things," he said. This doesn't mean it has no singleplayer capability — there are maps against AI opponents — but it doesn't sound like any kind of traditional, mission- or chapter-based progression through a narrative is in store for the game. It sounds like a training area.

In fact, Mitchell used those words.

"It's a pretty good training ground," Mitchell added of the game's singleplayer offerings, "and on top of that you're unlocking the same content as you would playing in PvP."

Nonetheless, the abandonment of a singleplayer campaign signals a growing trend in big-name console shooters. Star Wars: Battlefront will have no singleplayer campaign. Evolve had no campaign. Titanfall had no campaign, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 will have no campaign on its PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions.

Rainbow Six: Siege is due for a Dec. 1 launch on PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One. Its multiplayer beta kicked off two days ago. At E3 2014, Ubisoft's Montreal developers were mum about singleplayer campaign plans, saying "we are focusing on multiplayer now." The game was originally announced for an Oct. 13 launch date and then delayed in order to improve "the co-op experience" it will offer.