Video directed by Chris Principe, edited by Justin Wolfson. Click here for transcript.

A few weeks ago, we asked folks at both the main and fashion-specific Rainbow Six subreddits to share pictures of their Rainbow Six: Siege operators and loadouts. We took some of those submissions and shared them with Ubisoft Presentation Art Director Alex Karpazis to get his expert take on the style and the strategy behind these character choices.

Karpazis has plenty to say about the purely superficial bits of Rainbow Six style, calling out some rocking "Twitch Prime purple hair" in particular. But he also gets into how that style can affect gameplay, as with different gun sights that "obscure different parts of the screen" when trying to make your shot. There's also some general strategy advice mixed in, especially for people who accidentally kill their hostages with Fuze's grenade-spreading gadget.

The CNE video studio
A peek behind the scenes during the shoot.
A peek behind the scenes during the shoot.
Image showing video monitor
Two cameras, like real pros!
Two cameras, like real pros!
Alex at table looking at director
We got props and everything.
We got props and everything.
A gaming computer
Our producer's custom gaming rig getting its moment in the spotlight.
Closer shot of gaming PC
That actually is the producer's rig—due to some scheduling issues, we needed to rely on in-house resources for the computer side of things for this video. This PC was also used for all the direct capture footage.

We also convinced Karpazis to show off his own in-game loadouts and stats, a process he preceded by saying "Nobody is good at Rainbow, including me... Please be gentle, I get it."

That bit of self-deprecation helps explain why he never wears special skins given only to developers: "If I team-kill someone with that, it's over for me," he quipped.