The latest round of changes and patches for Rainbow Six Siege are being released today on the game’s test server, allowing a small amount of the PC population to test out the new features and help with bug fixing and balancing.
The patch is part of the game’s first season of its fifth year, and the content was announced just recently to be bringing some new operators to play as, tweaks to maps, and more to the game.
New Operators
The first of the new operators is Iana, a new Attacker. Her ability is to create moving holograms of herself to use as decoys to bait enemy players into shooing or throwing their explosives. The hologram can also expose enemy traps without triggering them. She is similar to the Defender, Alibi, who can also create decoys of herself, but hers are stationary.
The second operator is Oryx, a Jordanian operator who can break down softer barriers without any equipment. Unlike the Sledge, a well-known Attacker in the game who can break down soft barriers with his breaching hammer, Oryx doesn’t need any equipment to do so, instead using his dash ability, though he does take damage if going through a wall. His battering-ram attack can knock other players over, including those using shields. Oryx can also jump up to an open hatch, hang on its ledge, look around, and either climb up or jump back down. The drawback to his abilities is that they are very loud.
Map changes
In terms of maps, the patch is tweaking Oregon, and giving most areas a more open look and feel. In addition to this, there are some new areas of access and rotation.
First off, there is a new corridor that connects Big Tower to Kitchen on the first floor, appropriately called Kitchen Corridor. There is a new area in the Basement called Freezer, which connects to the first floor with Freezer Stairs. They have removed some doors between areas and have added more breakable walls throughout the map, so they encourage players to remain alert as they move through it.
Gameplay and other changes
Furthermore, there are some gameplay tweaks, most notably the consistency of barrier debris. Now, partially breaking a barrier will create much smaller debris, reducing the risk of a piece being stuck on one player’s screen and not the other and helping with line-of-sight. They have also changed the spawning of Attackers’ Drone Spawn, no longer having it be random, but instead, having it always spawn on the same side of the building as you chose your operator to spawn on.
Some Operator prices will be decreased, with Mira and Jackal now at 10,000 Renown or 240 R6 Credits. Lion and Finka will do gown to 15,000 Renown or 350 R6 Credits, and Mozzie and Gridlock will be 20,000 Renown or 48- R6 Credits.
Finally, there are some changes to the Player HUB, changes to Lesion and Twitch, a new Lara Croft Elite set for Ash, some new weapons skins, and more. You can read up on everything coming on the game’s official website.
This will be the first update to the game’s fifth season, which sees the game continuing to update and improve. The game had a rather rocky launch, but Ubisoft has dedicated a lot of time and effort to consistently bring new Operators and gameplay mechanics to it. This kind of attention has made the game one of the most popular competitive games in the world of esports.
The patch is set to release today on PC, with the game also being available for Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
