If you didn't catch Ubisoft's E3 press conference a couple weeks ago, it showed off a new installment in the Rainbow Six franchise, Rainbow Six: Siege. And while the demo Ubisoft presented was visually impressive, it incited controversy because of the use of a woman as a hostage.
Now, Ubisoft technical artist Olivier Couture has attempted to end some of the debate by confirming that, in fact, there will be male hostages in Siege as well. In an interview with Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Couture says, "We're also gonna have male hostages. That's part of the plan."
Why did Ubisoft choose to use a female hostage in the stage demo? Couture explains that the developer wanted the audience to sympathize with the hostage and want to protect her. "I know some people asked about the hostage in the demo," he says. "I mean, when we did that design we felt a lot of empathy with the hostage. We wanted people to want to protect her. If the hostage gets killed a team loses the game, so we wanted players to care about the hostage so that's the design we chose."
The team is focusing on realism with the hostages, as well. It wants each civilian to act as naturally and predictably as possible for a person in such a situation, while keeping the game fair for the player. Couture explains, "We're trying to define next-gen with the hostage. We call that a 'living hostage.' So she'll react to explosions and things like that. It's pretty cool. She'll cough because of the dirt in the air, she covers herself when there's shooting – those sorts of things. We want the player to be able to move her into different positions, for there to be fluid controls. It's a balance between player comfort and reality."
Rainbow Six: Siege comes out in 2015 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. We were impressed with what we got to play of Siege at E3. Keep an eye on GameSpot for more news of the game as it becomes available.
| Alex Newhouse is an editorial intern at GameSpot, and you can follow him on Twitter @alexbnewhouse |
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