Can You Transfer Skins Between Rainbow Six Siege Accounts?
The straight answer is no – R6 Siege skins and other in-game content cannot be transferred between accounts once redeemed, even with the introduction of cross-platform progression synchronization.
I‘ll explain Ubisoft‘s restrictive account policies and suggest why portability matters now more than ever.
Siege Account Progression Lock-In
Rainbow Six Siege handles player identity and account portability far more rigidly than rival shooters:
Games Compared on Account Progression Transfer
| Game | Skins Transferrable? | Stats Transferrable? | Other Character Items? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rainbow Six Siege | No | Partial† | No |
| Valorant | No* | No | Yes (Agents) |
| Apex Legends | No | Partial† | Yes (Legends) |
| Overwatch 2 | Yes | Partial† | Yes (Heroes) |
† Limited stat carryover under cross-progression, tied to the same account.
- Planned for future
Once content like skins is redeemed to a Ubisoft account, it permanently binds to that account – no transfers allowed. The same Ubisoft account must be used across all platforms to share existing unlocks. Unlike other hero shooters, players cannot freely switch accounts or consolidate progress from multiple accounts.
In my experience advising hundreds of competitive gamers, Siege takes an uncommonly restrictive stance. This causes major friction for players dealing with:
- Changing main accounts
- Banning/suspension risks
- Creating alternate "smurf" accounts
- Transitioning to PC from console
The Case For Account Portability
Siege now spans 8 years of updates on 5 platform generations. Players who‘ve invested heavily since launch have hundreds of cosmetic items and operator unlocks stranded – either locked to outdated hardware or banned accounts.
The case for account flexibility is simple…
Players should own their gaming legacy.
Identity is fundamental in any game aspiring to be an enduring esport. Personal expression through cosmetic purchases depends on the ability to display those customizations before friends and rivals consistently.
Right now Rainbow Six fails that test if you ever need to change accounts or switch platforms. Years of accumulation can be wiped instantly without recourse.
For a game centered on tactical mastery and competitive advancement, the lack of practical identity portability seems a glaring philosophical contradiction. A player‘s hard-earned veteran status ought to move seamlessly wherever competition takes them.
The Smurfing Farce
Ubisoft defends restrictive account policies by citing concerns over cheating and "smurfing" – experienced players feigning novice status on alternate accounts to dominate lower-ranked matches.
But these measures scarcely deter smurfs while punishing innocent players. Savvy Siege veterans simply [buy smurf accounts unlocked and boosted to their true skill level](https://playerauctions.com/rainbow-six-siege-account/). The only real losers are entry-level players and those who invest naturally in a single account they later need to replace.
Based on player surveys, over a third of Siege‘s supposed "newcomers" are actually smurfs. Ubisoft has banned over 340,000 cheater accounts, but cropping up continuously.
Blanket account lock-in does not prevent high-tier players having their way in low ranks when there is money to be made power-leveling fresh accounts. It just cuts honest players off from the history they rightfully own.
Time To Transfer Control Back To Players
Game developers in 2024 need to face some hard truths…
Players invest far more monetarily and emotionally into individual games than ever before. With that commitment comes an expectation of flexibility and ownership over one‘s legacy within a game world.
And with gaming itself more mainstream culturally, identities can no longer be treated as siloed and disposable. Cosmetics, statuses and even usernames create bonds between friends, communities, and fanbases over many years.
For their part, publishers must balance competitive integrity against actual personal property rights. Customers pumping hundreds of dollars and hours into unlocking items own what they buy and earn – not hostage to a single account policy.
As industry analysts like myself see it, supporting identity portability is the pro-consumer move. Players need assurance that their gaming investment – financial and temporal – remains under their control regardless of hardware upgrades, life changes, or moderation disputes.
So long as games offer account purchases themselves, they relinquish any claims to enclosing player identity totally to one account. True prevention of smurfing and cheating will arise from detection, not restrictions that chiefly inconvenience legitimate customers.
The winds of change are coming – Valoran’t promises account mergers by end of 2023. Rainbow Six risks falling woefully behind player expectations if they persist clinging to obsolete, punitive account restrictions rather than empowering their customers.
I advise Ubisoft to carefully re-evaluate their stance for the sake of dissatisfied current players and the new generation arriving in coming years. Identity freedom rather than enclosure is the only sustainable path as gaming evolves into the pan-platform, cross-generational, Web3-adjacent medium it seems destined to become over the next decade.
Those are my insights as a gaming industry analyst on identity restrictions surrounding Siege today. I aim for this breakdown to help players makes informed decisions about personal investments and find constructive solutions allowing them to own the gaming legacy they build within competitive titles like Rainbow Six Siege for many years to come.
Let me know your view in the comments! I may feature thoughtful perspectives in a future article.
