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On August 2, in the approval information of imported online games released by the State Administration of Press and Publication, "Rainbow Six" ranked first and occupied the well-deserved C position.

Within just one hour after the version number was updated, the news that Rainbow Six had passed the review spread across social media and all my FPS player communication groups, followed by a highly positive and optimistic sentiment.

Almost all creators who have participated in or are still producing Rainbow Six content could not contain their excitement and shared their joy with the majority of players in their dynamics. That evening, "Rainbow Six passed the review" became a hot search on Bilibili, and players couldn't wait to open the Rainbow Six live broadcast. For a moment, it seemed as if the entire community was celebrating the New Year.

Rainbow Six, which was launched in 2015, is undoubtedly an old game. Why is the approval of an old game so exciting, and why does the player community burst out with such amazing energy at the moment of approval?

Many years have passed, and Rainbow Six still lacks competitors in the market. FPS games that focus on 5V5 battles of alternating offense and defense are certainly not new, and the concept of "tactical shooting" has become universal as the FPS field is segmented. However, Rainbow Six is ​​probably the only game that can combine the two elements of "demolition" and "CQB" (close quarters) so well.

Rainbow Six is ​​a tactical shooting IP with a long history. Born from Tom Clancy's novel of the same name, Rainbow Six, created by Ubisoft, has a unique hardcore temperament since ancient times.

From the first generation to Vegas, this series, which uses real special forces and weapons and equipment as the core elements of the game, has always been able to allow players to immerse themselves in tactical deductions and Cosplay of "Rainbow Six", the world's most elite special forces.

The equipment customization interface of Rainbow Six: Vegas 2

Entering an era of online games that is conducive to commercialization and new product promotion, Rainbow Six has not lost its tactical shooting nature while simplifying the game process.

Rainbow Six strictly sets the battle area in a house or building, and uses bombs or hostages to define the victory conditions of a single map. Although the game is based on the exercises of the Rainbow Team operators, this exercise has a bit of a sense of unscrupulousness.

The special equipment of the operators is a key factor affecting victory. Different from the fireworks and lightning that are common in realistic shooting games, and also different from the fancy skills in hero shooting games, these special equipment are based on high-tech equipment that is not common in reality but exists. They play a huge role in CQB that is no less than skills, including but not limited to projectiles and traps that interfere with vision, hearing or mobility, harder shields, thicker armor, and even simple and crude bombardment.

Given the underlying design of headshots killing you, gunfights are always risky. To reduce the risk or avoid gunfights, both sides always invest a lot of equipment and props. And because there are countless destructible walls in the building, both the attacker and the defender can take advantage of this and use the prop "demolition" to open up attack routes or create advantageous gun positions. Parts of the floor and ceiling can also be demolished, which gives "Demolition No. 6" a vertical three-dimensional offensive positive feedback that no other FPS has been able to learn so far.

Before attacking a building, the defenders must plan their defense deployment in advance, set traps, reinforce the walls, and rack their brains to create chaos for the attackers; the attackers will send out drones to scout the defenses in the building and think about attack strategies based on limited information. When the attack begins, both sides will meet at points to start tactical and prop games, continue to use drones and fixed cameras to collect information, and gradually shake the balance of victory by means of coordinated attack, battlefield division, and catching single enemies from behind.

The rich props and removable positions also mean rich and free tactical choices, as well as the ever-changing battle situation in the game. The core process of using practice to verify the tactics in theory and using special equipment to crush the opponent's offense/defense has created an unparalleled gaming experience in Rainbow Six.

The use of tactics is a test of intelligence, which requires one or five smart brains that are always working. According to an IQ test conducted by professional psychologists on 1,001 players in 2020, led by the gaming website Royal Panda, Rainbow Six players have the highest average IQ of 120.3. Although there is a lack of further verification, the saying that "most players who play Rainbow Six for many years have sharp eyes, extreme self-confidence, and gradually increase their intelligence" is by no means groundless.

It seems that due to their high IQ, during the period when the game was banned, only Rainbow Six players could come up with all kinds of tricks to hide the Rainbow Six live broadcast from the super administrator. From using the interface of other games to cover the Rainbow Six screen, to using abstract live broadcast ideas such as the underworld filter, grating encryption technology, Fourier transform technology, etc. that can no longer see the screen, "a method of live broadcasting Rainbow Six based on xxx" has long become a performance art that people talk about on the Internet.

Raster Encryption

Image source: Station B @Inklaw

It is precisely because Rainbow Six has an unsurpassed and unique experience that the game has had a deep player base in China since the international version was launched. A sufficiently loyal player group is bound to bring about a stable and healthy community culture and content creation ecosystem.

Corresponding to its "high IQ", the community ecology of Cailiu presents an inclusive temperament of "high EQ", which is equally friendly to both casual players and hardcore players.

The emphasis on the underlying tactical design of Rainbow Six determines the high entry and getting started threshold for the game. Questions such as how to use items and the optimal solution points are sometimes not answered by the official Ubisoft tutorials.

Fortunately, veteran players have taken the initiative to take on the responsibility of promoting new players, producing a series of detailed text or video guides for each map and each operator. They also actively teach newcomers in daily communication until they can also stand on their own and fully enjoy the fun of winning tactical games.

B station @盐巴好甜 is a Up master who specializes in providing new guides

Yoming, the commentator of e-sports events, also works part-time to make many guides for beginners.

Players who have a certain understanding of the game will start to choose operators that rely more on map understanding and restraint, and then they will pay close attention to official updates and dynamic balance adjustments to operators or maps. Updates to international servers need to be translated, but the highly intelligent Rainbow Six community will not lack English experts who are capable of translating version news or official logs.

R6S Chinese website has been translating official updates for many years

The Rainbow Six community is truly amazing at creating jokes and memes. Because the game style, special forces operators, and equipment design of Rainbow Six are all very recognizable, the memes generated around the game, especially the operators, can easily spread beyond the community, making passers-by happy and remembering nicknames such as "Jager" and "Ash".

There are countless examples like this, and some of them are unique to the domestic environment. Players call Mute and his signal jammer that looks like a router Wifi, and Rook's armor pack that everyone lines up to get is called "box lunch". As for Sledge, who swings a demolition hammer, he is often associated with the decoration worker played by Huang Hong in the classic Spring Festival Gala sketch "Decoration". When hammering a wall or a person, the impulse engraved in the DNA can't help but make players shout "eighty".

The memes are not limited to the pioneer operators at the time of the game's release. The operators that were updated with the season pass are also inevitably ridiculed by players. For example, the Japanese operator Echo often stays at home playing with drones and is called a "fat otaku". There is also Osa, who often needs to hold up a shield to move to the right position, just like the Iron Gate Zombie in "Plants vs. Zombies".

With years of comedy gags as a foundation, combined with popular online memes, these videos are aimed at the insider community, are more in-depth, and more targeted at players' pain points and laughs. They are also very "dignified", filling the community with a happy atmosphere.

Operator Chen Guilin

Celebrating the national service's approval

Image source: B station @高坂大芥豆

The highlight collection is also a tradition that the Rainbow Six community must try. This tradition originated from the highlights of overseas self-media. Many memes were born from these highlights. For example, the highlights of console players often have horse-shooting clips or the "two-person show" of no one being able to do anything to the other in the endgame, which always makes the audience sigh in the barrage of console and controller players.

But Rainbow Six is ​​a hardcore game, and PC players are no exception. After all, no matter how good the tactics are, there are always counter-strategies, and no matter how skilled the players are, there will always be mistakes and distortions. In other words, everyone has the potential to become the protagonist of a famous scene.

After many times of being bad, you get used to it. After realizing this, most of the high emotional intelligence lottery players can make up with themselves in milliseconds from the time they make a bad move. After the reconciliation, they can't wait to share this clip on the Internet, just to make people laugh.

The work of editing the highlights of domestic players was eventually taken over by domestic players. The exaggerated special effects and "live family" sound effects taken from online spoof videos or American ghost videos, as well as the montage storyboards commonly seen in comedy films, made the humor of these loose clips increase exponentially, turning them into an irresistible "electronic pickled mustard".

Image source: Station B @Khadafour

Rainbow Six is ​​not a bad game for serious e-sports. The PVP tactical game is both interesting and entertaining, and is more suitable for a long-term e-sports project for professional teams and expert players to explore the upper limit of tactics. Ubisoft's e-sports business practices over the years have been controversial, but overall, they have become the key to the continued popularity of Rainbow Six over the years.

Although the lack of a national server means that domestic Rainbow Six players cannot get equal training opportunities, traffic and capital, and even Ubisoft cannot provide effective sponsorship, it is not easy to stick to one's heart in such an environment. However, in adversity, flowers like Reeps96 and MentalistC can still grow up and stand out on the stage of the world competition.

In 2023, Singapore club BLEED announced the establishment of the Rainbow Six Division, and the two Chinese players mentioned above were on the roster. In the same year, BLEED entered the top ten of the Major and participated in the top event "Rainbow Six" International Invitational (Six Invitational 2024) for the first time, and also won 9-12th place.

At the recent EWC Saudi Esports World Cup, the day before the national server announced its approval, BLEED once again achieved a breakthrough, defeating SI 2024 runner-up, the old North American powerhouse FaZe, and advanced to the quarterfinals. BLEED's wonderful performance proved the strong potential of Chinese players and also demonstrated the possibility of integrating China's Cailiu esports environment into the Cailiu international esports system.

Reeps96 got a triple kill in the last round

At least the players can get the prize money, and the Chinese commentary around these e-sports games is pure love, which is even more precious. Yoming, who has participated in the game since high school and is still on the front line of commentary, often complains in his commentary videos that the domestic environment is "stagnant" and "there is no hope for Rainbow Six" - it is conceivable that he was one of the happiest people after the news of Rainbow Six's national service approval came out.

In addition to officially supported competitions, domestic “grassroots” community competitions are also very popular. It is worth mentioning that Rainbow Six is ​​also quite popular among college students, perhaps because of its appeal to high-IQ gamers. It is not uncommon to see exchange competitions within or even across schools organized by exchange groups, clubs, and “school teams” of similar players in various universities.

2021 Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications In-group Exchange Competition

Image source: Station B @RnGourd

Whether it is the creation and ecology of the domestic community for experts or novices, they are all inseparable from the color of "powered by love" due to the absence of the national server. However, the long-term active community culture proves the full love of domestic players for "Rainbow Six", and the community ecology in turn becomes the emotional bond that maintains this love, even if it passes year after year, people are reluctant to give up.

The long road of waiting for approval over the years has been very difficult for domestic players, and during this period, the game environment of Rainbow Six itself has also undergone tremendous changes. However, Rainbow Six is ​​still the same Rainbow Six, the core multiplayer experience of the game is still there, the fun of free demolition and tactical games is still there, and the community ecology built around the game is also growing tenaciously.

The introduction of the game license finally gave an explanation to the domestic players who have been sticking to the game for many years. The experienced Tencent taking over the domestic server also means the resolution and answers to many problems.

The Chinese version of the game can provide a better experience than the international version, allowing domestic players to enjoy the fun of Rainbow Six. The accelerator required to play the international version is always a threshold, and the quality of Ubisoft's servers, which are ridiculed by players as "potatoes", makes many people complain; even professional players like Reeps96 have to play the game with a delay of more than 100 milliseconds because the rules of the game prohibit the use of accelerators.

Once the national server taken over by Tencent removes the network barriers and provides a more ideal network environment, the legend of "the potatoes are cooked" will surely come to an end in China.

The problem of plug-ins is also a headache. There are many incredible and even ridiculous plug-ins in the history of the operation of Cailiu. However, Tencent's ability to combat and prevent plug-ins is obvious to all. There are also many cases of its ability to cooperate with law enforcement agencies and use legal means to combat the plug-in industry chain. We can expect that the fair competition of the national service Cailiu will be protected.

At the same time, with the huge scale of Tencent's social media, the new user acquisition and return traffic will not only be stronger, but the community connection established based on social media will also be closer. In the maintenance stage of Rainbow Six, Ubisoft has gained a large and very active force of Chinese players, which will also boost the confidence to continue operating the entire IP.

The win-win effect brought by the perfect match will also allow Tencent and Ubisoft to reach a consensus and strive to bring a more ideal experience to the Chinese server than before - not only allowing new players to feel the charm of 3A-level CQB FPS games, but also stimulate the desire of old players to return to the game. The further expansion of the audience group and the continuous injection of fresh water from the source are the key to the healthy growth of the Rainbow Six community ecosystem.

The approval has also accelerated the process of the domestic lottery e-sports system integrating into the international environment. Once the national server is launched, domestic competitions from top to bottom will explode, which will naturally create considerable traffic and commercial value.

On August 6, the Chinese social media accounts of Rainbow Six went online one by one, announcing that the Chinese server had entered the preparation stage for launch. From the comments of the players who couldn't wait, it's not difficult to read the players' expectations:It is the unique positioning of Rainbow Six in the FPS field that has given birth to such a vibrant community culture, making players look forward to the arrival of the "second spring" of this old game.

We hope that in the near future, creators like Yoming will be rewarded for their love, excellent professional players like Reeps96 will be able to represent CN, and those who have left the Rainbow Six game will find their home in the national Rainbow Six game. As the Rainbow Six community ecosystem continues to grow, more and more people will understand and even like this game.And this "second spring" is getting closer and closer to all players.