Rainbow Six Siege Hack Forces Ubisoft Emergency Shutdown
The Ubisoft Rainbow Six Siege hack has already rattled the international gaming community as the French gaming studio suspended live services at short notice after hackers accessed the online infrastructure of the game.
The Rainbow Six Siege team was made aware of the breach on Dec. 27, when players reported strange incidents in the game. It became obvious within hours that it was not a glitch and was serious. Ubisoft completely shut down the game’s servers and marketplace by the following day to minimize the damage.
Hackers Give 2 Billion Credits to All Players
A Profit of $13.3 Million Per Account
As numerous players have reported, accompanied by screenshots shared online, the backend of Rainbow Six Siege has been compromised by attackers. When players signed in to the game, they witnessed massive credit and item drops. Players received 2 billion R6 credits along with rare skins, guns, and other premium items.
To put the scale into perspective, Rainbow Six Siege sells 15,000 R6 credits for $99.99. If done legitimately, it would cost players nearly $13.33 million for 2 billion credits.
What’s more worrying is that the hackers apparently gained access to the game’s messaging system and banning system, putting account integrity and internal security controls at risk.
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Ubisoft Starts Reversing Hack of Rainbow Six Siege
As revealed via a Dec. 28 post, Ubisoft began reversing all in-game credits granted after 11:00 AM UTC.
According to the “development team,” a rollback is in progress and will be followed by extensive quality-control testing to safeguard user account access and confirm the fix.
According to the studio, it would be “extremely cautious” with the process, although players were warned not to expect timelines due to the massive rollback required.
Crucially, Ubisoft assured players that no bans would be issued for spending hacked credits prior to the server shutdown.
Rainbow Six Siege Begins Gradual Return
Minimal Testing Prior to Full Relaunch
Ubisoft confirmed that Rainbow Six Siege is being slowly brought back online after the shutdown through a soft launch.
The team noted:
“We are opening the game to a limited number of players only, while we complete our live tests, more details on the full relaunch to follow after testing.”
Rainbow Six Siege is one of Ubisoft’s flagship franchises. According to ActivePlayer.io, the game averaged over 34,000 daily active players in December. Pressure is mounting to restore service without sacrificing fairness and stability.
Centralized Architecture Enables Rollbacks — Sparking Debate
The hack highlights a key difference between traditional centralized games and decentralized systems. If the game used a truly decentralized cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, Ubisoft would not be able to reverse transactions.
However, recent events — including a transaction reversal on the Flow blockchain — show that even some blockchain ecosystems can intervene under extreme circumstances.
Ubisoft’s Increased Participation in Blockchain Gaming
Despite controversy, Ubisoft continues exploring blockchain video games. The company previously partnered with Immutable to integrate Web3 gaming features into titles like Might & Magic.
The Rainbow Six Siege incident may influence Ubisoft’s stance — and the wider gaming industry’s — approach to digital ownership, security, and centralized authority going forward.
What the Rainbow Six Siege Hack Means for Gaming
The recent Ubisoft Rainbow Six Siege hack resulted in practically every player’s in-game economy being compromised. The breach was not caused by a technical failure but by attackers gaining access to Ubisoft’s backend systems, making the game vulnerable.
As Ubisoft works to rebuild trust, developers and players alike are raising difficult questions around security, digital economies, and centralized control.
While Rainbow Six Siege is edging closer to a full return, one of the biggest exploits in gaming history is set to leave a lasting impact on the industry.
