Rainbow Six Siege is more popular and better than ever. That's one point for 'make something actually unique and stick with it,' zero points for 'give up and lay everyone off'

Rainbow Six Siege is having a moment. The tactical FPS is one week into a major update that introduced a new name (Siege X), a wild 6v6 mode, modernized maps, and most consequential of all, a new price point: After holding out for 10 years, Siege is finally free-to-play.

Siege X is now more popular than ever, sustaining the kind of top-five Steam numbers that it used to only reach during free weekends. That boggles my mind, because to me, Siege has always felt like a game that's just a handful of disasters away from collapse.