In a bid to bolster the authenticity of 2015’s Rainbow Six Siege, developer Ubisoft Montreal sought help from real-world special operations soldiers. The developer wrote on its blog that it invited GIGN operators to its office to play Siege to help verify that it was approaching the game in a way that would accurately reflect how actual soldiers go about rescuing hostages.

“While a lot of people on our team are veteran FPS developers, at the end of the day we’re just gamers and consulting with the real operators helps make sure that we’re doing it right,” Ubisoft said. “We get to ask them a lot of questions and get great feedback. Interestingly enough, they told us that if given a choice to protect a teammate or a civilian, the GIGN operator would protect the civilian. That’s some serious dedication to preserving life and we wanted to emulate that kind of passionate commitment in the game.”

GIGN is a division of the French Armed Forces that specializes in hostage rescues. Depictions of GIGN soldiers have appeared in numerous game franchises, including Counter-Strike, SOCOM, and Call of Duty.

In Siege’s Hostage Rescue mode, one team of defenders is holed up in a building with a hostage in their possession. The other team must locate and extract the hostage (in a certain amount of time) or kill all enemy players to end the round.

Game designer Chris Lee said the fact that hostages can take damage and die means players must plan their moves with precision.

“You have to be careful when trying to breach into the area where the hostage is,” he said. “You can’t just throw a frag or any explosives near the hostage without a second thought. You have to be very careful where you aim your weapon as well. It greatly increases the tension around the hostage, which differentiates it from other types of objectives.”

Once you locate the hostage, one player on your team will need to escort him or her to the safety zone. The player who is doing the escorting will be more vulnerable, in that they move slower and can only use a pistol. Ubisoft said communication and teamwork will become “paramount” at this stage to complete the objective.

“This stage in particular can be one of the most anxious parts of the whole round,” the developer explained.

For more on Siege–which will run at 60fps across Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC–check out GameSpot’s previous coverage.

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