"Esport is not a phenomenon anymore. It's the entertainment of the new generation." - François-Xavier Deniele of Ubisoft

It's been 10 years since the launch of the professional scene of Rainbow Six: Siege and its esports scene continues to thrive. Despite the classic ups and downs, the FPS tac shooter remains to be one of the most popular esport titles to date, reaching a peak viewer count in 2024 at Six Invitational of over 520,000.

Following the opening press conference at EWC 2026, Strafe managed to speak with François-Xavier Deniele, VP, Marketing & Esports at Rainbow Six. With a 17-year tenure at Ubisoft and counting, François was happy to share insights on the 10 years of sustainability of Rainbow Six, how the team operates to draw in more new players and viewers, as well as giving a more general view on esports, and how Rainbow Six: Siege keeps the zero to hero dream alive.

*Note: The following interview has been lightly edited for the sake of clarity and conciseness.

Putting the Game at "The Heart of Every Decision"

Strafe: First off, I wanted to ask about the 10 years of sustainability of Rainbow Six: Siege. It's a massive achievement, not many games can sustain an esport for such a long time. What is the core element that you prioritize to keep the game competitive and sustainable over a long period of time?

It's a good question. Definitely at the heart of every decision we are making for the game it's listening to what our community wants all the time, so we clearly have a deep relation with all kinds of communities we have and what we need to clearly have in mind is we have different types of communities.

We for sure have the esport one (community), which are the best players in the world, which I like to say are playing a different game than others. They know how to play the game like nobody else. And then we have the large community playing who are more than 100 million players for Rainbow Six playing another game. So we need to make sure we are balancing the game for everyone at the same time because we have different behaviors in the game.

This is clearly putting the game at the heart of every decision we are making in esports, and definitely we are not changing the game [in favor] for esport, we are not updating [the game in such a way]. We are for sure creating specific features or content but we are clearly here to maximize the exposure throughout each part of our game.

Onboarding the Next Generation of Siege Fans

Strafe: And now talking about the viewers. Rainbow Six: Siege is quite a complex game. When you don’t yet understand the game and when you start to watch it there’s so many maps with floors and so many Operators, there are almost 80 right now. So, how much work goes into making the barrier of entry lower for newcomers and for new viewers?

It’s day-to-day. It’s clearly about how we onboard new players and with the introduction of Rainbow Six: Siege X, it’s the evolution of our game. After 10 years, we introduced more ways to on board [them], [for them] to start playing the game with a fewer Operators first, [get] introduced to one map and after starting to you know, to play it more like a chess game, you know use more tools and and [understand] where to work [on the map].

It’s also our work to show how we show the game. And how viewers act in the game. So we are working on [adding] a lot of innovations, tools and features into the game, so we have a way of how you can put the camera on the top and watch (top-down view). To watch every floor and see the chess and mind games between them (the teams).

We introduced a lot of predictions and a lot of ways for people to understand, because what is very deep and interesting with Rainbow Six is you have the time which is very key. It’s very slow at the beginning, and at one moment everything will happen in 30 seconds. So we are working very closely with our partner Blast and with the production of the game to also work on, “Okay, how can we show every action at every match differently?” to let people understand that, yeah a lot of stuff happened and not just the last shot.

Competition Types and Keeping the "Zero to Hero" Dream

Strafe: Now about the World Cup versus club ecosystems in esports. Do you think that the club-centric franchise system that a lot of esports implement restricts the growth of esports? And perhaps should esports go more in the direction of a World Cup event? Or what can be done to merge those two worlds?

It’s very interesting because for me, the industry is mature enough right now to offer different approaches to this. For example, for our own ecosystem for Rainbow Six, worldwide and yearly ecosystems, we still have a path to pro and zero to hero ecosystems, meaning we have not blocked the first leagues. We like the back end, you know, the top and down, just to make sure we keep this notion of everyone can be the World Champion of your game, and it's very at the center of everything we are doing.

For Rainbow Six keeping this aspect [is important]. Clubs are very important to this. To keep sustainability and exposure of our games. So, that's why we introduced Rainbow Six share program, a way to sustain the club in the tier list, so it's something we are very proud of because we started nine years ago and it’s still very relevant and one of the best in the market to sharing game item with them, so it's a different way.

And for me, because esports is becoming mature enough and [so is] the exposure. For me, esport is not a phenomenon anymore. It's the entertainment of the new generation. We can offer new initiatives like the Esports World Cup or  Esports Nations Cup where games can combine together, which is very interesting because it's a way to expose our game to other audiences, because when you are doing your own ecosystem, you are exposing [it to] your own players.

It’s very good here because we are working very closely collaboratively with other publishers and we are very proud because we are the only French and European publisher and we can work with EA, with Riot, with Tencent, okay to define what we need to do together as an industry, which for me the pinnacle is the Esports Nations Cup, which will happen very soon. That’s where we are working to define, “okay, what does it mean to represent your country in a game?” Which for me, it’s just crazy.

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Featured Image Credit: Exclusive to Strafe Esports

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