When two stealth icons collide - How Konami and Ubisoft united Solid Snake and Sam Fisher in Rainbow Six Siege

In 2020, Ubisoft rocked the Rainbow Six Siege-shaped boat when it brought Sam Fisher, aka ‘Zero’, to its long list of Operators. One of gaming’s most beloved stealth icons who's gone without his own standalone game over a decade now, Zero quickly settled in as a popular pick on the roster, equipped with kit adapted from his own splinter of the Tom Clancy-verse.

Fast forward to 2026, Ubisoft is pulling a similar card, only this time it’s turning to Intellectual Property outside of its own ranks - and it couldn’t have possibly picked a more venerated stealth character than Konami’s Solid Snake. A reveal trailer shown at the Rainbow Six Siege Invitational Paris event shows both Snake and Fisher perform their first ever on-screen team-up, and it’s something that appears to have been a labour of love for both stewards of the characters.

Siege’s new creative director, Joshua Mills, who has just taken over the reins from long-standing Ubisoft veteran Alexander Karpazis, tells me that the collaboration has been an idea two years in the making. “I sat down with Alex, and I was like, ‘All right, man - Snake in Siege’. And he was like, ‘What are you talking about?’,” Mills says.

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“We were like ‘This is gonna happen. We have to do that’,” Mills tells me excitedly. The idea proved so popular among the internal team that it was greenlit within six months.

It wasn’t long before Konami was involved, and veteran Metal Gear Solid producer Yuri Korekado seemed equally as thrilled about Ubisoft’s proposal. “They approached us with the idea that it was going to be for the 10th Anniversary of Rainbow Six Siege. So it was going to be a very big collaboration, and something that they had never done before, which was bringing an Operator from a different IP into the Rainbow Six Siege universe, which was very exciting,” Korekado says.

From there, the story of manifesting Snake in the world of Rainbow Six Siege became one of collaboration and trust on both sides of the fence. “We've had a great open line of communication where we can share assets and conversations, and they really felt the passion that was on our side,” Christopher Budgens, Siege’s live service director tells me. “It really helped those conversations move forward.”

Mills explains how the team was keen to respect Konami’s character from the off, ensuring their design pitches stayed true to Solid Snake’s look and feel. “Because of the way we were so meticulous ourselves, we were right in alignment with Konami,” Mills says.

“Anything that needed to be done, like the eye colour, the hair, the actual bandana, getting it all perfect - we were already going over it ourselves and keeping a line there.

“But when it came to the actual integration into Siege, [Konami] were like ‘It’s Siege, you know what’s best, so deliver that’.”

Satoshi Takemura, Solid Snake’s artwork lead at Konami, praised Ubisoft’s understanding and appreciation of the Metal Gear Solid series. “It was fairly easy, in the sense that the team at Ubisoft was incredible. They know a lot about the series, and it's clear that they love the series. So there's really nothing that we had to push against,” he said.

Although Metal Gear Solid games can deal with some pretty heavy topics, they remain filled with fairly goofy game mechanics in parts. Shuffling around corridors underneath a cardboard box and strapping fulton balloons to downed enemies spring to mind.

While those aspects are a part of Snake’s character, Ubisoft had to toe a fine line between respecting his legacy and making him fit in with Siege’s canon. An early prototype of a cardboard box gadget mechanic was apparently tested, for example - but it ended up getting scrapped before getting pitched to Konami.

Although the cardboard box was intended to automatically blend into the surrounding environment with an active camo ability, the team found that players would see right through it - literally. Mills explains, “Because our players know every inch of every map, if they see a cardboard box somewhere, it's gone.”

This led the team to a more grounded approach to Snake’s kit. “It was looking at that and going, ‘if this is Snake in our world, what would that look like?’ [So we] built [his kit] that way and made his primary gadget and abilities make sense with all our other Operators,” said Mills.

Mills and the team landed on fitting Snake out with his Solition Radar and OSP Pouch for his gadgets, with the classic .45 pistol residing in his secondary slot. Bringing up the Solition Radar allows players to detect when enemies are nearby, with a limited number of pings available to reveal the directional vision cone of nearby enemies, accompanied by the

.

However, successfully scanning enemies will inform the enemy of Snake’s presence. Although a useful gadget for gaining intel, it does come at a cost.

Meanwhile, the OSP Pouch is fantastic for players who like to switch up their playstyle on the fly. Snake’s resourcefulness allows him to scavenge throwables from downed players with a cycling menu to select which item he’d like to pick up.

This means that although you may only start the round with a single flashbang, you could pick up and use several more different types of grenades before the round timer runs down.

Korekado was especially keen to see Snake unite with Ubisoft’s own king of stealth. “What I felt was the most interesting thing that Siege approached us with was to have Sam Fisher and Snake get together in the game. That was really, really interesting.

“They have never been in a game or on a screen together the both of them. But when we received the idea and we imagined the both of them acting together, it was really, really exciting to us to imagine that.”

I asked Korekado whether the collaboration would ever work the other way with Fisher making his way into the world of Metal Gear. He said, “As fans of games and gamers ourselves, we would be very excited if that were to happen, but obviously we don't know about the future.”

On the other hand, it sounds like Ubisoft is open to the idea of including more third-party collaborations down the line.

Mills pointed out, "You'll notice that on Snake, it says ‘Iconic’ as a tag now, and it'll say the franchise is from. But we also did that with Sam, because Sam is technically from the Splinter Cell series. So at the end of the day, we've set up the system in place to allow that, but we will be very reserved and conservative about how we approach this.

“Snake makes a lot of sense, and it really can align and gel well. But depending on what other franchises would be there, it would be very, very meticulously thought over to make sure that it becomes true [to Siege].”

Solid Snake joins the Rainbow Six Siege roster when Year 11 Season 1 starts on March 3, 2026.