Rainbow Six Siege has spawned enough surrounding work that the ordering question comes up constantly.

Short answer

Treat it as supplementary. Enjoyable on its own, and richer if you have played first.

  • Credit fan artists if you reuse their work.
  • Check whether something is official before treating it as canon.
  • Read the whole sequence once before doing the first step.

Siege rewards knowing the building more than knowing the gun, which is why map knowledge outranks aim here. Assets circulated online are often ripped rather than released, which affects what you can legally do with them. Licensed soundtracks are the most likely part to be missing from a re-release.

What is fan-made

Anything that behaves differently on console than on PC is flagged where it matters. Official art books contain material that never appears in the game itself. Fan work is frequently better than official work and is not the same thing. There is no hidden trick here that the game is keeping from you.

Release order and chronological order are different, and both have their advocates. Adaptations take liberties, and the interesting ones take them deliberately. Most of the disagreement you will find online is two people describing different builds.

Where to find it legitimately

Canon status is decided by the developers rather than by the adaptation's writers. Screenshots age faster than text, which is why this describes rather than shows. If a step reads as obvious, do it anyway — the obvious ones are the ones people skip and then wonder about.

  • Expect licensed music to be missing from re-releases.
  • Play first if you mind spoilers — adaptations rarely respect them.
  • Check the version you are actually running before assuming anything is broken.
  • Buy from the publisher's own store where one exists.
  • Look for an official assets page before downloading anything.
  • Keep a save or backup from before you start — it costs nothing and occasionally saves an evening.

Whether it is worth your time

The community wisdom on this is roughly half right, and the half that is wrong costs the most time. The short version is near the top on purpose; the reasoning is there if you want to know why. Patch notes move numbers around constantly; the shape of the answer holds even when a specific value shifts. The awkward part is rarely the step itself, it is knowing which step comes first.

Nothing here assumes a particular playstyle beyond wanting the thing to work. Treat anything stated without a version number as provisional. The developers have changed their mind about this at least once, which explains the older advice.

Where it fits with the game

It helps to understand why a step exists, because then you can adapt it when your situation is slightly different. There is usually a fast way and a reliable way, and it is worth knowing which one you are choosing. If you are coming to this after a long break, the terminology has probably moved on.

A single check up front replaces a lot of guessing later. Where two approaches both work, the one with fewer moving parts is the one to keep. Do the cheap check before the expensive one — that ordering alone saves most of the frustration.

What exists officially

If your result differs from what is described here, note what is different first rather than starting over. Everything below is framed around the current state of Rainbow Six Siege rather than a launch-week impression. Rainbow Six Siege is not shy about hiding useful information two menus deep, so some of this is simply knowing where to look.

Where people go wrong

  • Copying a setup wholesale from a streamer without understanding what each part does.
  • Rushing the last step, which is usually the one with the actual requirement in it.
  • Changing five things at once and then not knowing which one helped.

Siege FAQ

Is it canon?

Where the developers have said so, yes. Adaptations produced under licence are frequently their own continuity.

Where can I get it legally?

Publisher stores and licensed platforms carry all of it. Anything circulating as a free file is a rip.

What if none of this works for me?

Then something in your setup differs from the assumption — version, region or platform. Check those three before anything else.

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.

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