EVE Echoes interview: Recommended specs, Yan-Jung faction, and how NetEase adapted CCP's MMORPG epic for mobile.Every step of the gameplay has been influenced by Rainbow Six: Siege in some way. Ubisoft asserts that Area F2 is a "near carbon-copy" of Rainbow Six: Siege, and… well, yeah, we also find that point pretty hard to argue with. Are you hearing this, Area F2 devs? You can't use this article as a defense, and I don't want Ubisoft's lawyers at my door. Now, let's be perfectly clear: I am most certainly not a legal expert, and any opinions found within this article should not be considered legal advice in any content. Now the question is whether or not the lawsuit will stick. Area F2, if nothing else, is heavily inspired and influenced by Rainbow Six: Siege. It is hard to imagine a world where both of these games exist, and the developers of the one that launched multiple years later took zero inspiration from the first.
In the embedded video you can see a comparison between Rainbow Six: Siege and Area F2 and, well… it is pretty blatant if we're to be perfectly honest. I think mobile should be home to pretty much every game genre, and the close-quarters shooting of Siege has been relatively unrepresented before now. Let's be clear, I want a Rainbow Six: Siege-like game on mobile. So, what does Rainbow Six: Siege do that's similar? Well, the short version is… pretty much everything. Smart players will even be able to predict enemy movements and shoot them through walls without ever seeing them. You must learn the map in detail, and use it to your advantage at all times in order to make it through.
Area F2 is a close-quarters shooter where one team takes up space in a building and attempts to defend it, while another team attempts to invade that building and blow it up - or, more likely, one of the teams will die before the objective gets touched. So, is this lawsuit justified, and is Area F2 a blatant irredeemable rip off of Rainbow Six: Siege? Hardcore clone? The mobile gaming space is no stranger to "clones" of other popular titles, but the lawsuits don't come out very often, especially not from the larger games publishers. So what's the deal, and what's the Pocket Gamer verdict? The fact that Ubisoft has actually thrown down the legal gauntlet is another shocker - and neither the App Store or Google Play Store is yet to relent, as you can still download the game from both storefronts (this has very quickly become no longer the case, so if you still want to play you might need to hunt down an illicit apk, if that will even work.).
Ubisoft sees Area F2 as a blatant clone of Rainbow Six: Siege in all but name, and with Siege's recent success in esports and a hardcore, dedicated community, Ubisoft definitely does not want anyone muscling in on their territory. Ubisoft saw Area F2 and quickly decided to throw the legislation, suing both Apple and Google for hosting Area F2 on the App Store and Google Play Store respectively. Area F2 launched on mobile not long ago, and then quickly shot up in popularity thanks to a little attention drawn to it by Ubisoft, of all things.