how to play is one of those Rainbow Six Siege questions where the accepted answer is nearly right and the gap matters.

Short answer

Do the simple thing first. It is correct more often than the complicated thing people recommend instead.

  • Do not build a routine around an edge case.
  • Test it yourself where testing is cheap.
  • Write down what you changed, so you can undo exactly one thing if it goes sideways.

Siege rewards knowing the building more than knowing the gun, which is why map knowledge outranks aim here. It is worth separating what the game does from what players have concluded it does. Nothing here depends on a setting you are unlikely to have.

What to do instead

Anything that behaves differently on console than on PC is flagged where it matters. Edge cases are genuinely rare, which is why the simple answer is usually the correct one. Most of the disagreement online comes from people describing different versions of Rainbow Six Siege. The developers have changed their mind about this at least once, which explains the older advice.

Testing this yourself takes a few minutes and settles it definitively. The mechanic behind it is simpler than the discussion around it suggests. The community wisdom on this is roughly half right, and the half that is wrong costs the most time.

Worth knowing alongside this

The accepted community answer is broadly right and wrong in a specific way that matters here. Screenshots age faster than text, which is why this describes rather than shows. There is usually a fast way and a reliable way, and it is worth knowing which one you are choosing.

  • Try the straightforward approach before the elaborate one.
  • Note the exception cases — they are specific rather than vague.
  • Check the version you are actually running before assuming anything is broken.
  • Check which version any conflicting advice was written for.

Why it works this way

If you are coming to this after a long break, the terminology has probably moved on. Do the cheap check before the expensive one — that ordering alone saves most of the frustration. Nothing here assumes a particular playstyle beyond wanting the thing to work. Patch notes move numbers around constantly; the shape of the answer holds even when a specific value shifts.

The short version is near the top on purpose; the reasoning is there if you want to know why. Half the pages on this topic were written for a build that no longer exists, which is why they stop matching what you see. If a step reads as obvious, do it anyway — the obvious ones are the ones people skip and then wonder about.

The practical answer

Treat anything stated without a version number as provisional. None of this needs a paid tool, a third-party launcher or an account on a site you have never heard of. Rainbow Six Siege is not shy about hiding useful information two menus deep, so some of this is simply knowing where to look.

Most of the disagreement you will find online is two people describing different builds. What follows assumes you are on a current install and have not modified it. Everything below is framed around the current state of Rainbow Six Siege rather than a launch-week impression.

When the usual advice fails

It helps to understand why a step exists, because then you can adapt it when your situation is slightly different. Where two approaches both work, the one with fewer moving parts is the one to keep. The awkward part is rarely the step itself, it is knowing which step comes first.

Where people go wrong

  • Treating a rare edge case as the normal behaviour and planning around it.
  • Changing five things at once and then not knowing which one helped.
  • Grinding a method that was patched months ago because a thread still ranks well.

Siege FAQ

Why do other guides describe this differently?

Most were written for an earlier version and never revisited. Compare the steps against what your build actually shows.

Does this change between platforms?

The behaviour does not. Where menu paths or prompts differ, that is noted above.

How long does this take?

Minutes if it goes cleanly, an evening if you hit the edge case in the caveats list. Neither is unusual.

What is the short answer?

It is the paragraph near the top. Everything after it exists for the cases where that paragraph does not quite fit.

Bookmark it if you like, but honestly, once you have done it once you will not need to come back.