Ubisoft Censors Rainbow Six Siege for China, Fans Hate It

If there’s one thing you can count on gamers to be, it’s passionate. Sometimes that passion translates into cool art and fan-games and awesome charities that raise enormous amounts of money. Usually, however, it translates to very angry people being very angry about things. Sometimes those things are justified – like I would say it’s more-or-less fair that fans were pretty disappointed about Blizzard’s choice to use BlizzCon to announce Diablo Immortal. Other times, it’s downright silly, like when fans were basically battering down Nintendo’s doors to have Waluigi added to Smash.

Other times, it’s a mixed bag, like how Ubisoft’s fans are enraged that Ubisoft is making slight changes to Rainbow Six Siege in order to accommodate Chinese censors.

Here’s the story: Ubisoft is preparing to roll out their well-loved multiplayer shooter in Asia soon, and Asia includes China, who has millions – if not billions – of potential players. And while it will largely be region locked and will thus have a lot of region-locked changes, some of the smaller changes they’re being forced to make by Chinese censors will be made to all editions, worldwide. On the grounds that it’s just easier.

For example, a few icons are being changed (removing skulls and knives), references to sex and gambling have been stripped away… and that’s pretty much it. Stuff I’d wager most people didn’t even notice until now.

Still, it’s enough for fans to claim that Ubisoft is bowing to a dictatorship (technically true), that they’re traitors to the west (what does that even mean?), they’re spineless cowards (we knew that already), and thus sparking an enormous wave of anger and hatred, which has led to angry posts on the subreddit and an enormous influx of downvotes on Steam.

So is it kind of a silly controversy? Sure. But I see both sides. And I’ll take any excuse to pick on Ubisoft some more, so… I guess I’m angry too, now? Alright. Let’s say that.