Rainbow Six Siege came back from the dead on December 29, 2025, ending a 48-hour nightmare that saw Ubisoft completely shut down one of its most popular games. The servers reopened to all players around 9:30 PM UTC after extensive testing and a full transaction rollback to December 27 at 10:49 UTC. However, the Marketplace remains closed indefinitely, and players who logged in during the breach may temporarily lose access to items they legitimately owned.
The breach that triggered this crisis was one of the most bizarre in gaming history. Hackers gained administrative control and flooded player accounts with 2 billion R6 Credits (worth roughly $13.3 million each), every cosmetic item in the game including developer-only skins, and manipulated the ban system to randomly ban and unban players including streamers. The total value distributed reached an estimated $339 trillion in virtual currency across the player base.
What Happened During the Rollback
Ubisoft’s solution was drastic but necessary: roll everything back to before the chaos started. Every transaction, purchase, unlock, and account change from 10:49 UTC on December 27 through the shutdown was reversed. Players who went on shopping sprees with their billions in free credits found those purchases vanished. The ultra-rare Glacier skins and developer-exclusive cosmetics that suddenly appeared in inventories were removed. Even legitimate purchases made with real money during that window got rolled back.
The company performed extensive quality control tests before reopening to ensure account integrity and verify that the changes worked correctly. Ubisoft emphasized they handled this matter with extreme care, which is why the downtime stretched beyond initial expectations. Getting a live-service game with millions of accounts back online safely after a breach of this scale requires meticulous verification that everything functions properly and no backdoors remain.
Players who didn’t log in between December 27 at 10:49 UTC and December 29 should see no impact on their inventories. Everything should look exactly as it did before the breach. However, those who did log in during that window may temporarily lose access to some owned items even if they purchased them legitimately before the incident. Ubisoft stated that investigations and corrections will continue over the next two weeks to restore properly owned content.
The Marketplace Stays Closed
While the game itself is playable again, Ubisoft kept the in-game Marketplace shut down as investigations continue. This means players can’t purchase R6 Credits, buy cosmetics, or acquire any items through the store. The timing is particularly painful given that this happened during the lucrative Christmas holiday period when games typically see surges in microtransaction revenue.
James Lucas, a journalist covering the incident for The Gamer, noted that such attacks on prominent titles are quite rare. He highlighted that the outage’s timing during the Christmas season poses significant challenges for Ubisoft, especially considering many new players receive games as gifts during the holidays. Without the Marketplace operational, there’s no way for these newcomers to buy in-game items anymore, cutting off a major revenue stream.
BBC coverage of the incident noted that one player claimed they could empty the store multiple times over during the breach, purchasing everything available repeatedly. The scale of potential loss if Ubisoft hadn’t rolled back transactions would have been astronomical, potentially costing tens of millions of dollars in legitimate revenue if players had no reason to purchase anything ever again.
Queue Times and Slow Reopening
Ubisoft warned players to expect queues when connecting as services ramped back up gradually. Rather than opening floodgates to millions of concurrent users immediately, the company implemented controlled access to prevent overwhelming the infrastructure. Some players reported waiting several minutes to connect as servers stabilized under increasing load.
The official Rainbow Six Siege status page showed unplanned outages across all platforms (PC, PlayStation, Xbox) even as Ubisoft announced servers were reopening. This discrepancy caused confusion among players checking whether they could log in yet. The status page updates lagged behind the actual restoration process, leading to mixed messages about availability.
What Players Lost and What They Keep
Anyone who spent their billions in hacked R6 Credits won’t face bans or penalties, which Ubisoft confirmed early in the crisis. However, they also won’t keep anything they purchased. All cosmetics, operators, skins, charms, and other items bought during the breach window were removed. For players who legitimately purchased items with real money during that period, those transactions were also rolled back, though Ubisoft should restore them once investigations verify the purchases were legitimate.
The situation gets messier for players who logged in but didn’t spend their free credits. Some report losing access to items they owned before the breach even started, apparently caught in the rollback’s broad sweep. Ubisoft acknowledged this issue and committed to fixing it over the next two weeks, but it means some legitimate players are temporarily missing content they paid for with real money months or years ago.
Progress in terms of rank, stats, and match history from December 27-29 is gone. Any ranked matches played during that window don’t count. Challenges completed, battle pass progression, and seasonal rewards earned during the downtime window were wiped. It’s as if those two days never existed for anyone who played during them.
The Security Questions Nobody’s Answering
Ubisoft has been remarkably quiet about how the breach happened. The company confirmed that hackers didn’t access customer personal data like passwords or bank details, but they haven’t explained how attackers gained administrative control over the game’s backend systems. Security researchers pointed to vulnerabilities in Rainbow Six Siege’s service APIs, but Ubisoft hasn’t confirmed or denied specific attack vectors.
Multiple hacker groups claimed responsibility or involvement in the chaos. VX-Underground’s investigation identified at least five groups connected to the incident, though only one actually performed the breach. Others tried to capitalize on the confusion by claiming they stole source code or user data, with varying degrees of credibility. The situation revealed both the actual security failure and the chaos of multiple bad actors trying to take credit or exploit the moment.
What remains unclear is what Ubisoft has done to prevent this from happening again. Simply rolling back transactions and restoring service doesn’t address the fundamental security weaknesses that allowed hackers to gain admin-level access in the first place. Without transparency about what went wrong and what’s been fixed, players are essentially trusting that Ubisoft has secured the infrastructure without any public evidence that vulnerabilities have been patched.
The Bigger Picture About Game Security
This incident highlights how vulnerable live-service games are to targeted attacks. Rainbow Six Siege has been running for ten years, and during that time, its backend infrastructure accumulated technical debt and potential security gaps. Games built on older architecture that’s been patched and updated repeatedly can develop blind spots that attackers eventually discover and exploit.
The breach also exposed a separate, ongoing issue: customer support staff accepting bribes to access player accounts. VX-Underground reported that Ubisoft support representatives primarily based in India, South Africa, and Egypt have been taking monetary payments to give hackers access to Rainbow Six Siege accounts since 2021. While this wasn’t directly related to the December 27 breach, it demonstrates systemic security problems beyond just technical vulnerabilities.
For the gaming industry broadly, the Rainbow Six Siege hack serves as a wake-up call about the importance of security infrastructure investments. Companies pour hundreds of millions into game development, marketing, and live-service operations, but security often receives inadequate resources until after a breach occurs. The reputational damage and revenue loss from incidents like this far exceeds what proper security would have cost.
What Happens Next
Ubisoft faces a delicate balancing act reopening the Marketplace. The longer it stays closed, the more revenue the company loses during what should be its most profitable season. However, reopening too quickly without fully understanding and fixing vulnerabilities could trigger another breach, causing even more damage. The company hasn’t provided a timeline for when the Marketplace will return, only saying “until further notice.”
Players who temporarily lost access to legitimately owned items have to wait while Ubisoft manually investigates and restores content over the next two weeks. For a playerbase that just endured 48 hours of downtime, asking for additional patience while the company fixes collateral damage from its own rollback is a tough sell. Ubisoft may need to offer compensation like free cosmetics or R6 Credits to smooth over frustrations.
The security investigation will likely continue for months as Ubisoft works to understand exactly what happened, how attackers gained access, and what vulnerabilities need patching. Whether the company shares findings publicly or keeps them internal will determine how much trust the community can rebuild. Transparency about security improvements would help, but many companies prefer staying quiet to avoid revealing weaknesses to other potential attackers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Rainbow Six Siege servers back online?
Yes. Ubisoft reopened servers to all players on December 29, 2025 around 9:30 PM UTC after 48 hours of downtime. However, players may experience queues when connecting as services stabilize. The game is playable but the Marketplace remains closed indefinitely as investigations continue.
Did I lose everything I bought during the breach?
Yes. All transactions from December 27 at 10:49 UTC through December 29 were rolled back. This includes items purchased with the hacked credits and legitimate purchases made with real money during that window. Ubisoft will restore properly purchased content during investigations over the next two weeks.
Will I get banned for spending the free credits?
No. Ubisoft explicitly confirmed that nobody will be banned or penalized for spending credits they received during the breach. However, all purchases made with those credits were removed during the rollback, so you don’t keep anything you bought.
Why can’t I access items I owned before the breach?
Some players who logged in during the breach window temporarily lost access to legitimately owned items due to the rollback process. Ubisoft is aware of this issue and will continue investigations and corrections over the next two weeks to restore properly owned content. Players who didn’t log in between December 27-29 should see no impact.
When will the Marketplace reopen?
Ubisoft hasn’t provided a timeline, only stating the Marketplace will remain closed until further notice as investigations continue. The company needs to ensure all security vulnerabilities are addressed before reopening the store to prevent another breach. This could take days or weeks depending on the complexity of fixes required.
How did hackers get into Rainbow Six Siege?
Ubisoft hasn’t publicly explained how the breach occurred. Security researchers pointed to vulnerabilities in the game’s service APIs that allowed hackers to gain administrative control. While Ubisoft confirmed personal data like passwords and bank details weren’t accessed, they haven’t detailed what security measures are being implemented to prevent future attacks.
What about my rank and progress from December 27-29?
All progress during that window was wiped by the rollback. Ranked matches don’t count, challenges completed were reversed, battle pass progression was removed, and stats were reset to their December 27 state. It’s as if those two days never happened for players who were active during the breach window.
Conclusion
Rainbow Six Siege’s return after 48 hours offline marks the end of one of gaming’s strangest security crises, but the fallout continues. Ubisoft’s decision to roll back transactions and carefully test everything before reopening was the right call, even if it meant extended downtime during the holiday season. However, the company’s silence about how the breach happened and what’s been fixed to prevent recurrence leaves players in the dark about whether their accounts and purchases are truly secure. The closed Marketplace represents ongoing lost revenue for Ubisoft and frustration for players who want to buy items but can’t. Meanwhile, legitimate players who lost access to content they properly owned face weeks of waiting for manual restoration. The incident exposes broader questions about live-service game security, the technical debt that accumulates in decade-old infrastructure, and whether publishers invest enough in protecting the games and communities they’ve built. For now, Rainbow Six Siege is back and playable, but the scars from this breach will linger long after the Marketplace finally reopens.