The recent release of Operation Ember Rise has resulted in an alarming flood of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks on Rainbow Six Siege. These issues were faced by players in the past as well, but the new waves have now forced Ubisoft to take a different approach.
In an announcement made on the official website earlier today, Ubisoft assured the community that it has been closely monitoring the prevailing situation of its online infrastructure. In order to safeguard Rainbow Six Siege, the developer has decided to take five steps to curb the DDoS menace.
Starting from next week, the worst offenders will be permanently banned on both consoles and PC. These ban waves will continue as needed in the weeks to follow once more players are identified. Ubisoft is also reducing the number of matches being hosted per server to just one, opposed to the current three. This should reduce the impact of DDoS attacks on Rainbow Six Siege by at least 66 percent.
Ubisoft is also disabling penalties for abandoning matches but only for matches hit by DDoS attacks. The way the servers manage data for Rainbow Six Siege is being adjusted as well to further reduce the amount of stress after an attack. This will take effect in early October.
Finally, Ubisoft has started exploring legal options to submit cease and desist notices to websites and users involved. Ubisoft is also working with the Microsoft Azure team to come up with shot and long term solutions.
Operation Ember Rise was released last week. It’s the third seasonal content for the fourth year and like the ones before, introduces two new operators: Amaru, the Grappling Hook Attacker; and Goyom, the Explosive Shield Defender. Operation Ember Rise also debuts the first battle pass of Rainbow Six Siege, pushing monetization through rewards.
Rainbow Six Siege is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. The tactical shooter crossed 50 million players this month, an increment of 5 million from last year. Ubisoft is fully committed to the game and likely has a couple of more yearly seasons in the works before even thinking about a sequel.
