Has Siege X spiked the Rainbow Six player count?

Opinions are like favourite titles; every gamer has them, so there are positive and negative views of Rainbow Six Siege X, depending on where you look and who you speak to. We’re not debating the benefits or otherwise here, though. It’s clear Ubisoft delivered the Siege X update with two clear things in mind: freshening up a decade-old title and optimising its longevity.

Has it achieved either of those? Well, it’s hard to quantify the added lifespan Siege X will deliver so soon after the update. But we can and will look at the key metric in that assessment: player count. Has Siege X increased Rainbow Six Siege players? We’ll delve into that and the key reasons behind any change. We’ll also consider what the current longer-term trend could be and what the future player population could look like. Where can R6 Siege X go from here?

Yes, Siege X has spiked the R6 player count. There’s the quick answer, and it’s done so significantly too. Naturally, this isn’t a reflection of sentiment because even people who don’t like the update to R6 Siege will have to play the update to know. But if you look at the ‘one month’ view on Steam Charts, you’ll see a clear change in player numbers. 

Leading up to the June 10 release, R6 Siege looked on a downward trend from Feb/March 2025, peaking at approximately 66,000 players the day before Siege X released on June 9. On June 10, the 24-hour player count peak jumped to around 141,000 players, a massive increase and 2.1x the day prior. Such a huge jump may be expected given a major update, and looking at the longer view on player counts adds more context. But we’ll come to that in a bit.

So why did the Siege X/Rainbow Six Siege player spike? Simple. During its lifespan, Rainbow Six Siege hasn’t been alone in a specific negative question being asked; Google Trends’ history of “is Rainbow Six dead” peaked in 2020, 2024, and…well, that question hasn’t gone away. Gamers have been asking that question on Reddit, Quora, and there have been articles aplenty, and you can find a discussion for every year from around 2019. Honestly, there were even rumours of its demise in 2016.

But Rainbow Six Siege isn’t dead, the game keeps going, has an active esports scene, and receives regular updates from Ubisoft. Arguably, it’s nowhere close to dying, and as long as the servers are up, there’s a chance it can bounce back to a player count high. Right…? Maybe. As a recent example shows, even the most loved games (Fortnite) can fall to surprising lows. 

What’s a bigger search term than “Is R6 Siege dead”? The answer is “Is R6 Siege good?”. And that’s telling, because logic suggests existing players don’t put that into search bars. A title with a 10-year history and where players still ask whether it’s good means it is continuing to be noticed. New players are the lifeblood for older games, and when those players join existing, returning players, you get a spike like the one on June 10.

But does that make Siege X, its new Dual Front mode, visual and audio overhaul, and other changes a success? In some part, because half of the battle for online games is getting people into servers. That’s worked, and since June 10, player peaks have been over 100,000. Success isn’t something defined in days, though.

Approximate annual player count peaks, according to SteamCharts.

The June 10 Siege X update stands out as a spike, but it’s only the highest player peak since March’s Year 10 Season 1 update, which topped at (a similar) 145,000 players. Perhaps there’s an element of summer impact from northern hemisphere countries, suppressing the Siege X numbers a little from beating the March peak, but without more data, June 10’s player count could indicate a couple of things. 

The first is that it’s a good jump-start for a 10-year-old title. That seems a fair view. But the second, looking at record peaks like March 2024’s 200,000 players, is that the spike is a blip in a generally down-trending title that has had its prime. Referring back to Steamcharts, the days after the Siege X release saw good figures, but one week after the initial 140,000 peak, on June 17, the player peak was down to 127,000. Two weeks after, it was down to 115,000, still above 100K, but showing a potential downward trend. 

So the initial answer is no, the spike hasn’t been sustained. Ubisoft isn’t anywhere near done with Siege X, of course, and there will be more updates and promotional boosts, like the Siege X collaboration with top R6 Share pro bundles. But it remains to be seen if, post-summer, June’s player spike was the start of something longer-term in a positive direction. Or a brief reversal of an unavoidable slide.

Whatever’s next for R6 Siege X, the Siege X update, certainly (for a summer release) spiked the player count. It couldn’t beat March’s Year 10 Season 1 update, but the gameplay changes of Siege X, the visual and audio overhauls, could give it a long-term boost. But it’s too early to tell if it can see more 100K+ player days, or if the Siege X effect on Rainbow Six Siege does little to reverse a recent downward trend.