Rainbow Six: Siege release date and free games announced at E3 2015

By Brad Jones June 15, 2015

As part of Microsoft’s E3 2015 conference, Ubisoft of America president Laurent Detoc took to the stage to confirm that Rainbow Six: Siege will launch on October 13, 2015 — and there’ll be a little something extra to sweeten the deal if you buy the game for Xbox One.

The critically acclaimed Rainbow Six: Vegas and Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 will both be available for free with the purchase of Rainbow Six: Siege. Both titles will also be made available via backwards compatibility to anyone who owns the Xbox 360 version of the game.

Announced earlier in the conference, backwards compatibility with Xbox 360 titles has long been one of the most requested features for Xbox One. It seems that the two Rainbow Six titles will be among the first wave of titles to be made compatible this holiday season, and the fact that they’re being used in a promotion for Siege might give us some more information on how the service will work.

It seems likely they’ll be offered as download codes, and that would suggest that users will be able to pick and choose titles to purchase and download via Xbox Live, rather than just using the Xbox 360 discs they already own. However, there’s currently no confirmation as to whether that’s the case as of the time of writing — although it does seem like the easiest way for Microsoft to monetize the functionality.

Rainbow Six: Siege is the first console entry in the franchise in seven years, and looks set to revive its much-loved brand of objective-based online multiplayer. The title is also set to launch for PlayStation 4 and PC, but it’s unclear whether or not purchases on those systems will also be bundled with the two Vegas games.

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Brad is an English-born writer currently splitting his time between Edinburgh and Pennsylvania. You can find him on Twitter…

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