Ubisoft Game Design Challenge

UbisoftSF's Challenge Prompt: “Design a new operator for Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege that appeals to a new audience”

Challenge Details

  • Preliminary Challenge: identify a new target audience & problem space
  • Semi-Final Challenge: design a new operator based off of pitched problem space

My Chosen Target Audience

Southeast Asian female players in the 18-25 age group

Problems identified

  • Steep learning curve
  • Toxic environment for female players
  • Lack of Southeast Asian operators (note: This problem was identified before Aruni , a Thai operator, was announced during the second challenge)

Goals

  • Beginner-friendly operator
  • Operator that appeals to a female audience
  • Create a Southeast Asian operator

Constraints

  • 2 weeks given for the semi-final challenge (4 weeks total time working on the challenge overall)
  • Needed to fit within the constraints of Rainbow Six Siege
  • I knew nothing about Rainbow Six Siege
Jump to Process
Jump to Key Solutions
Jump to Takeaways

Process

1.

Extensive research about the original vision of Siege, it's current playerbase, and the game itself

2.

Analyze all operators already present in the game to gain a better understanding of what makes a Rainbow Six Siege operator

3.

Brainstorm roles, abilities, loadouts, and backstory elements to fill in any gaps from current roster

4.

Compare ideas with original goals and Rainbow Six Siege's vision, choose a set of characteristics for this operator, and revise as needed

Key Solutions

From Ubisoft's annual report, the vision for Rainbow Six Siege was to transform it into an eSports game that promotes strategic thinking, cooperation, and diversity.

With that in mind, below details the processes behind my key design decisions for my operator

1. An attacking operator with a shield meant to help ease new players into learning the game while also encouraging strategic thinking & cooperation
 

Why did I choose a shield operator?

Operator Role Frequency in Current Roster

  • Using the official list, I counted the frequency of each possible role in the game across all of the current operators
  • Wanted to create an operator to offer more choices for the currently less frequent roles
    • Buff, Anti Hard Breech, Hard Breech, Covering Fire, Shield, Trap, Soft Breach, Area Denial
  • I knew that beginners would not have extensive map knowledge such as:
    • the best spots to place traps
    • key places to breech through
    • key areas to protect
  • So this left me with Buff, Covering Fire, and Shield
  • I went through player gameplay videos, and found that headshots are common
    • headshots are one-hit kills
    • in the case a beginner player experiences this often, could be a potential pain point
    • buffs do not prevent headshots
    • covering fire wouldn't protect from snipers
    • a shield could prevent headshots
  • So I decided to choose a shield role for my operator

How did I design the shield?

Shield Features

  • Absorbs an enemy's bullets and shoots them back
  • Protects top part of head when secondary weapon is in use
  • Transparent from inside of umbrella, opaque from the outside

All Current Shield Operators

  • I researched the differences between the shields of the current operators:
    • Montagne's shield
      • a large shield that covers the whole front of his body at cost of mobility
      • can collapse shield to half size to move faster
      • cannot attack while shield is in front, and only has access to a handgun
    • Blitz's shield
      • a half shield that is always held in front, protecting the front of his head
      • when Blitz attacks with his handgun, he moves shield and exposes his head
    • Blackbeard's shield
      • shield attachment for his assault rifle, so he can attack while it's protecting his head
      • the shield has "HP" so his shield is the only one that can break
      • he currently only has 2 of these attachments
    • Clash's shield
      • a full shield that can slow enemies down in front of her
      • can only attack with her handgun/machine pistol when shield is stored on back
  • I wanted to design a shield operator who's both balanced and unique from the other shield operators
  • Since I wanted to help the player from frequently suffering headshots, I wanted to design a shield that allowed the player to attack while it's protecting their head
  • The only operator with this capability was Blackbeard, so I researched him more and found that:
    • Blackbeard had a history of being unstoppable
    • Resulted in Blackbeard players being more likely to win gunfights
    • His shield previously was able to withstand more hits, so his head stayed protected for longer periods of time while he sprayed the opposing team with his Assault Rifle
    • So the developers had to weaken his shield to make it more fair and balanced
  • To avoid this past issue, I needed to design this shield in a way where:
    • can't allow aggressive attacks while shield is protecting front part of head
    • shield offers some unique capability distinct from Blackbeard's
  • For my shield design, chose to only allow player to attack with shield up when an enemy shoots at their shield, inspired by Wamai's special that changes the trajectory of bullets and later found out from a friend that this is a mechanic in Titanfall 2
  • also chose to have the shield be transparent from the inside and opaque from the outside made from the same material as Mira's special bullet-proof glass
    • allows player to see while shield is in front
    • allows enemies to easily identify the round shield, so they know to be cautious about shooting at it
  • chose to set her secondary weapon as a machine pistol to make up for her lack of independent firepower

What's the result?

  • opens up possibilities for new tactics such as what's illustrated above
    • left image illustrates using teamwork to combine a teammate's firepower with shield's ability
    • right image illustrates denying some intel from enemy team about a teammate's location
  • offers another layer of unique challenges to opposing team
  • versatility of shield encourages players to be creative in their strategic thinking
  • despite having the ability to attack with the shield up, placing a limit on when this attack can occur presents a potentially more balanced design for a shield operator

2. A Filipina operator that appeals to both Southeast Asians and female players to increase female Asian representation in Siege
 

Being Filipina-American, I wanted to design an operator from the Philippines inspired by my own experiences growing up and stories my relatives would tell me. I also wanted to fit the operator into the world of Siege

Details

  • this operator's codename, ULAN, is the Tagalog word for rain
    • references her use of an umbrella-like shield
    • similar to other operators' codenames where they typically reference their special gadget
  • she has a military background from her time in the Light Reaction Regiment (LRR) in the Philippines
    • the "delta force" of the Philippines that isn't known to have female soldiers
    • although her fellow soldiers underestimated her, she soon proved them wrong with her skills and strength
    • the Light Reaction Battalion (the former name of the LRR) was referenced in a Tom Clancy book
  • wears pearl earrings as a nod to her hometown, Cavite City since it's next to the water
  • was invited to Rainbow by Twitch because of their similar military backstories
    • Twitch was the first female soldier in the GIGN
  • the way her shield looks when not in use is similar to a salakot, a type of hat from the Philippines
  • I designed a potential Elite Skin inspired by these special jackets often found in malls in the Philippines

Results

  • Added more depth to this operator
  • Weaves references to her heritage into her overall design
  • Adds onto the diverse backstories in the pool of current operators

Takeaways

  • Although I did not make it to the end, it was a good opportunity for me to really dive head-first into a game I knew nothing about
  • Went from researching common issues that resulted in a steep barrier of entrance for my target audience to deeply analyzing the abilities and roles of the game’s current operators
  • Learned a lot about what makes Siege such a complex but rewarding game
  • Mentor said that although the passion was there, they wanted me to really push my design to feel more natural for the game. That I barely missed the cut, and didn’t make it in since they couldn’t take on anymore interns
  • It was the first time I took part in a Game Design challenge and first time creating pitch presentations, so it was a great experience nonetheless
  • I’m extremely proud that I got to take part and got as far as I did with this challenge, and it honestly encouraged me to try even harder as a game designer

My Submitted Pitch Presentions

Go to Google Drive Folder