What Happened To Rainbow Six Siege?
Over the December holiday period Rainbow Six Siege went through one of the wildest incidents in its history. The official Rainbow Six Siege account posted that it was aware of an incident affecting the game. That incident turned out to be a major breach that completely broke the in game economy and confused players across all regions.
Players suddenly logged in to find billions of in game credits sitting in their accounts. Others discovered ultra rare skins and cosmetics that were usually developer only or extremely hard to obtain. The chaos did not stop there. The global ban ticker that normally shows legitimate anti cheat bans started displaying strange and clearly unofficial messages including song lyrics and even bizarre jokes about Ubisoft leadership.
As the situation got worse reports spread quickly across social media and the Rainbow Six subreddit. Clips screenshots and threads showed off impossible credit balances and cosmetic collections that no regular player could have earned. It was obvious that something had gone badly wrong on the server side and that hackers were having fun with Siege's backend systems.
Ubisoft's Response And Server Shutdown
Eventually Ubisoft stepped in and took the servers down entirely. The official Rainbow Six Siege account confirmed on X that servers were offline while the team investigated the breach and tried to contain the damage. For a live service shooter that depends on constant uptime especially over the holidays this was a major move and showed the seriousness of what had happened.
In a follow up update Ubisoft clarified several key points for worried players. First anyone who had suddenly received billions of credits was not going to be punished for spending them. However this generosity came with a catch. Ubisoft announced that all transactions made after the incident began would be rolled back. In other words any spending of the hacked credits would effectively be undone once the systems were restored.
The studio also addressed the flood of strange bans and messages seen in the global ban ticker. Those were not real enforcement actions by Ubisoft but rather part of the breach itself. Hackers had apparently gained enough access to push fake ban messages into the game client. Some of these were clearly trolling including the lyrics to Shaggy's It Wasn't Me and other provocative statements. Ubisoft stressed that these messages were not official and that ban related anomalies were tied to the incident.
After emergency maintenance and investigation Rainbow Six Siege eventually came back online on December 28. The core game was playable again but the troubles were not completely over. Ubisoft kept the in game marketplace offline while it continued to work through the fallout and secure the economy systems. Long login queues also cropped up as everyone tried to jump back in after the downtime although Ubisoft later said those queue issues had been resolved.
Community Reactions And What It Means For Players
During and after the breach the Rainbow Six community reacted with a mix of confusion humor and frustration. On Reddit multiple posts warned players not to touch the ill gotten credits in case spending them led to bans or other penalties. Even though Ubisoft later confirmed that players would not be punished for simply using the hacked credits those warnings showed how uneasy people were about the whole situation.
Memes quickly followed. Players compared the incident to other notoriously messy game launches and server disasters. One popular thread jokingly portrayed Ubisoft scrambling behind the scenes while Siege burned. Others treated it like an accidental holiday gift from the hackers as people posted screenshots of their absurdly inflated credit totals.
Still the mood was not entirely light. Some players vented about how fragile the game seemed if a breach like this could happen. Long downtime right during a time when many people had days off to play made it even more annoying. One player summed up that mixed feeling perfectly commenting that they did not realize how much they would miss this supposedly bad game until they could not play it.
A report from Bleeping Computer dug into the technical side a bit more sharing unverified claims from various hacker groups that were all trying to take credit for the chaos. The security focused group VX Underground amplified several of these claims but at this point there is still no clear confirmed breakdown of exactly who was responsible or how they got in. What is obvious is that the attackers gained access to key live service tools including currency distribution cosmetics and the ban ticker.
For everyday Siege players the practical impact is more straightforward. Any credits you suddenly gained during the incident are not real wealth. Ubisoft's rollback means your account balance and purchases from that window should return to normal. If you saw odd ban messages or heard about mass bans those were likely part of the breach and not targeted at legitimate players.
The main remaining question is when the in game marketplace will be fully restored. At the time of the latest update the marketplace was still offline which means players cannot make new purchases or interact normally with the in game store. That is a big deal in a live service title with frequent cosmetic drops and event bundles. Until the systems are locked down and stable Ubisoft is clearly being cautious about turning everything back on.
Incidents like this highlight how much modern games rely on complex online infrastructure. When that backend is compromised even briefly it can reshape the entire experience from progression and purchases to bans and security. For Siege fans it is a reminder to keep an eye on official channels during weird events and to be careful with anything that looks too good to be true like suddenly finding billions of credits waiting in your account.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/rainbow-six-siege-servers-are-back-after-hackers-randomly-doled-out-bans-unbans-rare-skins-and-billions-in-in-game-currency/
