Going into Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege closed beta I wasn’t expecting much, as I have I have never overly enjoying multiplayer and co-op focused first person shooters, but Rainbow Six Siege took me by surprise as I found myself really enjoying my time playing the game’s closed beta.

What made me enjoy the Rainbow Six Siege closed beta was the fact that running and gunning was something you really couldn’t do in the game as those who decided to recklessly attack the opposing side would most like meet with their untimely demise, and dying in matches had consequences because once you die you are dead for the remainder of the match as there are no respawns. The fact that you only had one life per match really helped me love the game as I found tactical and slow play was often rewarded and more enjoyable, I mean what is more fun? Running into a building firing all guns blazing or grappling up to a first floor window, attaching a charge to a window barricade, swinging back, blowing up the barricade, and as you swing back towards the window jump in and shoot some unsuspecting enemies. Using tactical approaches like the above-mentioned window jump or joining up with teammates to search rooms for your enemies made me want to keep playing the closed beta.

So while I talk about tactics being important in Rainbow Six Siege, what did the game’s closed beta offer? The beta offered two 5v5 multiplayer modes in the form of the attack and defend round based TDM-Bomb and TDM-Secure Area, there was also a co-op mode called terrorist hunt where you and 4 other players enter a compound and attempt to eliminate all the terrorists inside (while it is co-op you can play this mode on your own). The game also had a number of unlockable classes known as operators. Operators come in two types’ attackers and defenders; the reason for this is because operators come with special support items. For example defence operators have special items such as shock wire, which allows you to electrify wire to help you better defend your location, while attack operators have special items such as extendable shields, which is perfect for keeping you and your teammates alive as you go room by room eliminating enemies.

Now as you might have gathered from the title, the game is essentially about counter-terrorism and hostage incidents, and to that end matches are played in small houses or embassies, but while the locations are rather small the game allows for a lot of verticality as combat can take place on a number of floors, and as such you are always moving. The verticality and small location aspects work well in the 5v5 multiplayer modes Bomb and Secure area as you have to be constantly aware of your surroundings as an enemy can come from nearly anywhere, which is why if you are the defensive side in multiplayer making sure walls have extra protection, window barricades have some nice traps etc. is all very important. For example during one TDM-Bomb game I forgot to secure a room properly and I was immediately killed by an attacker who shot me through a window that I forgot about.

The terrorist hunt co-op mode was also rather enjoyable as I found it fun trying a lot of different strategies to find the best way to enter compounds with teammates. However, while I did enjoy myself in terrorist hunt I often found myself dying for the stupidest of reasons. This included breaking down a door that had a bomb on it, and my most common of way to be killed was via terrorists who would run up to me and blow themselves up. Stupid deaths in terrorist hunt and by extension the multiplayer modes were frustrating because you could not respawn, and as such the only thing you could do was just sit there and watch your teammates have fun.

One of the biggest complaints I had with the beta was the fact that the multiplayer had some matchmaking issues. Transitions from round to round could see players get disconnected, and it was rare to see player joins games that were already in progress, which meant that games could become unbalanced, with matches becoming 4v2s or something just as silly.

So, what was my overall impression of the Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege closed beta? Well, I was impressed with the games premise and the fact that it rewarded those who use tactics, but I found that the game’s matchmaking needs some improvements.

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege will be released on December 1st, for PlayStation 4, PC, and Xbox One.