Rainbow Six Siege’s Year 8 was wild in the game’s competitive scene. Heated by a controversial number of international allocations given to Asian regions, APAC ended up taking over the BLAST R6 Major format with nine teams.
While teams like SCARZ, Bleed Esports, and Team Bliss managed to create some great runs and got to write Cinderella stories that went down the history books, South Korea was the other side of the coin.
After SANDBOX Gaming and DAMWON Gaming reached the quarterfinals and semifinals of the Six Sweden Major, respectively, expectations around the South Korean powerhouses quickly arose. Unfortunately for the region, during Year 7 and Year 8, South Korean teams were nowhere to be seen as they only collected a combined amount of seven wins out of a possible 44 in the BLAST circuit .
With Dplus and FEARX not being capable of asserting themselves internationally after two years of failed attempts, not just those two teams but the whole region became the target of severe criticism regarding the league’s quality and lack of talent.
It was then when, amid all of the chaos and criticism, Fabian “Fabian” Hällsten, driven by the hunger to find a new challenge to face, joined South Korea’s third team PSG Talon. The Swede’s goal was clear: guiding the players to a future where opting for international championships wasn’t fantasy but reality.
“It is an actual challenge in a different way, it’s not about taking an all-ready European super team and making them take that extra two, three percent up. We are talking of a team I have to take from the absolute bottom of the competitive ladder,” Fabian said in a SiegeGG interview shortly after the announcement of his signing.
“When you go up against Korean teams you play your s*** maps, you don’t give a crap, you only play your s*** maps because you can hide stuff for further down the line, so if I can make it that they can’t hide stuff against Korea anymore but they actually take out serious maps, then I will feel like I achieved something,” the Swede had said.
It didn’t take long for the three-time Six Invitational champion to transform PSG Talon. In their first attempt, PSG Talon became the first South Korean team since SANDBOX Gaming at the Six Berlin Major (played in August 2022) to win two matches in the same Major edition – against E1 Sports and Team BDS.
Eventually, PSG Talon also competed at the Esports World Cup 2024, and, despite missing out on the BLAST R6 Major Montreal, the team took down DarkZero Esports and Team BDS in the Six Invitational 2025. Unfortunately for them, that wasn’t enough to secure a spot in the Playoffs; however, their runs proved that it was still possible to create a competitive roster formed by South Korean players.
Surprisingly enough, Fabian’s time in PSG Talon was cut short after M80 acquired the Swede coach one year before the conclusion of his contract. Instead, his analyst at PSG Talon Jonathan “Jok3r” Paarsch, who he had brought to the project shortly before the start of the BLAST R6 Major Manchester, took over the South Korean lineup.
“He was bought out of his contract, he had a two-year commitment and there were final conversations during SI, before the transfer period started most of the stuff was finalized,” the German coach admitted in a pre-RE:L0:AD interview with the German coach.
Logically, changes bring uncertainty. Going from a three-time world champion to someone with almost no coaching experience may seem like a downgrade; however, after almost a full season under Fabian’s advice, combined with his knowledge of the South Korean and international competitive scenes, it makes sense to think the German is the right person to trust PSG Talon’s hopes.
“I had a year of learning under Fabian, I picked up a lot of his style, I would say, but we had a lot of time to learn from mistakes, because, we did some mistakes which we learned about a lot later we would have liked to, because of language barriers and cultural differences, so just the learning experience from working for PSG helped to know how to react to some situations like, if you’re losing, how do I react and how do I motivate them.”
“My biggest thing I brought with me to the team is my ability to talk to people, I think I am good at understanding the mood of people and reacting off of that, and helping them to be in a good team environment,” he added.
PSG Talon's growth in the region and international Siege can't be denied. The team quickly became South Korea's most consistent and reliable team outside the roster's home region, and got some results the region's powerhouses hadn't obtained in almost three years. However, Year 10 could be slightly different.
Putting aside small victories like unexpectedly reaching the BLAST R6 Major quarterfinals or some wins against various powerhouses at the Six Invitational, it's fair to say APAC rosters have nothing much else to celebrate. After so many years of failed attempts to create a super Asian team, some teams seem to have already given up and have completely changed their approach; instead of investing in their respective region's talent, they have picked up entire lineups or cores from stronger regions like Brazil or Europe. We're obviously talking of Dplus, Elevate, and Gaimin Gladiators.
This has obviously had an impact in the scene. In South Korea, this has allowed BNK FEARX to create a super South Korean roster after picking up the former Dplus duo of Jo "coted" Sung-jun and Park "Woogiman" Jin-wook. As mentioned by Fabian in his PSG Talon departure post, South Korea's player pool "simply isn't a thing." Therefore, when the biggest names in the region become free agents, the other powerhouse in the region will surely take them.
"We tried to get an academy team going, to have a player pipeline, but we had like three people signed up for it, or five signed for it, and three of them were cheaters, so that never worked."
"We are very happy with our roster now. We don't really have to do a player transfer, but if somebody wants to retire, like this situation we had at the end of last year where people weren't really sure because in Korea there's military service, so if people aren't sure if they can or want to continue playing, then we're sitting there wondering if the players' English is good enough to swap because they have constant English lessons are they are improving a lot, but it's hard to switch to a complete different language," he added.
The German coach also mentioned a problem that not many people think of: a small player pool inevitably means there will be no better options on the market, which leads to players feeling untouchable.
"One of the bigger problems as well is that they really don't have the pressure that they can't be replaced, kind of every Korean player that has been in FEARX or our team is pretty safe from replacement, because there's nobody that can replace them, that's not the perfect motivation booster, because in Europe, if you're slagging for a season, you're gone; in Korea you don't really have that pressure," the German coach explained.
With South Korea going through this situation, an obvious question arises: could PSG Talon end up importing players to the team's Rainbow Six Siege roster? This strategy was already implemented in TALON's Valorant squad, which included two American players from November 2023 to February 2025.
"I think right now some of the players wouldn't be able to call in English and play completely in English, it kind of differs from player to player, some are further advancing on their English, some are generally more quiet, they speak less during bootcamps, that doesn't help, right now it would be hard but the goal would be to have a roster where we could swap in international players if needed, I think this would take a few more months, but they are making good advances," Jok3r explained.
However, with Elevate and Dplus owning Brazilian rosters, and with Gaimin Gladiators having three players from Europe, these teams have started scrimmaging in their player's home regions instead. In other words, PSG Talon lost three of their most competitive opponents and their scrimmages have got even weaker.
"Preparation, generally, in APAC, is rough. I think it might be our biggest problem, that we can't scrim the top teams. Yes, we have SCARZ, CAG, last year we had Gaimin Gladiators, Elevate, they are better teams, but now Elevate is a Brazilian roster, GG is scrimming in Europe right now, Dplus is also scrimming in Brazil... we're missing three good teams from the team pool, so scrimming has got a lot worse."
"If you're one of the better teams in the region it's hard to learn from scrims because you're just punishing weaker teams for their mistakes, but you're not getting punished yourself, so for us bootcamps are the most important things to learn for big events because then we can play in Europe or Brazil or wherever, and we get punished for our mistakes, learning from mistakes is a lot easier if you get punished for them," he added.
Fortunately, PSG Talon have been scrimmaging in Brazil since late April, which has allowed the South Koreans to get more international experience right before the start of RE:L0:AD. With the arrival of Rainbow Six Siege X, this will likely be really important and could even be differential in their APAC League 2025 and Six Invitational 2026 hopes.
"It will be fun, but it's just not competitive, and it's just not a Major. We're happy to play Siege X, it's in front of Brazilian crowd, which is a crazy experience I was told, but I am not really sure about the format, the entire stuff, if it's more showmatch to catch new fans, or people that get into Siege again," he admitted.
Regardless of PSG Talon's result in Rio de Janeiro, the team is in front of a golden opportunity to prepare for the upcoming season. Having the chance to play against competitive rosters to easily spot mistakes and improve, while trying out Rainbow Six Siege X under Rio de Janeiro's sun it is, in fact, every player's dream.
Talking about dreams, PSG Talon's debut in RE:L0:AD will be against Mitch "Dream" Malson's Cloud9. The North Amerian esports organization is making its return to Rainbow Six Siege's international competitive scene in over four years, as the team's last appearance was at the Six Invitational 2021. Curiously enough, back then, Cloud9's roster was South Korean.
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