Rainbow Six Siege moves to DirectX 12 on PC, Ubisoft preps massive R6 Siege X update

Rainbow Six Siege will soon become a DX12 game on PC, Ubisoft today announced.

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Ubisoft needs a win, and its hail mary game plan includes a big overhaul of Rainbow Six Siege. The shooter is entering its 10th year on the market with no sequel in sight, with the teams instead focusing on continually updating the game over time. Now the tactical FPS is getting its biggest upgrade yet with Rainbow Six Siege X, a major refresh that Ubisoft says will deliver the "biggest transformation in the game's history."

Devs are paving the way for R6 Siege X by switching over fully to DirectX 12, meaning video cards running DX11 won't be able to run the game after the move. The decision has been criticized due to Ubisoft's DX12 implementation in R6 that has led to stuttering issues and ~8% frame drops from DX11. Ubisoft affirms that a lot of the DX12 issues have been ironed out thanks to player feedback and testing.

Ubisoft will showcase R6 Siege X during a special livestream on March 13, 2025.

The game will go down for maintenance tomorrow, the devs have confirmed.

Here's what Ubisoft said about R6 switching to DX12:

Operating Prep Phase is about laying the foundation for the future of Siege. We'll be soon sharing the changes and improvements to the game that will usher in a new era and enhance Siege as we take it to the next level.

In order to make this transition, our teams must focus on technology that will allow us to get there. The move to DX12 is essential; we can now fully focus on a single API that will give us room to not only optimize the game, but support feature rendering technologies to enhance immersion, benefit our anti-cheat efforts, and strategic opportunities.

As of now, only 1.4% of PC players cannot transition to DX12, and our hope is that these players are able to make the move in the shortest possible time.

Following your feedback, we postponed this decision to ensure the smoothest transition for the maximum number of players, and today, we can confirm that the collaboration with the community during Y9S4 has helped resolve the performance issues identified during the DX12 implementation, just in time for the Y10S1.0 Patch.

Huge thanks for your precious contributions and thanks to the vast majority of PC players who have adopted DX12 already.

The time has come to set the stage for Siege X with Operation Prep Phase--focusing on a single API will allow us to react more quickly to any remaining or emerging issues while intensifying our efforts on performance improvements.

This decision was not an easy one, but it is an essential step toward shaping Siege's future.