It could be onerous to imagine, however this yr marks the start of the eighth yr of help for Ubisoft’s live-service tac-FPS monster, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege. Siege isn’t slowing down any time quickly, it appears, as with Operation Commanding Pressure, Yr 8 Season 1 appears to be like to start out with a bang from Brazil, introducing a brand new operator, adjustments to reloading, and far more.
Let’s kick issues off by speaking about Brava, the brand new Operator, who will be part of the large playable roster of attackers. Hailing from Brazil, she’s an knowledgeable technician with the hacking abilities to match and a full of life character in comparison with a few of her friends. She’ll be becoming a member of Hibana’s squad of Operators, titled Viperstrike, with enemy electronics falling prey to Brava’s Kludge Drone.
The Kludge Drone is a singular tackle the signature drone attackers have at their disposal, as this model is Ubisoft’s concept of an anti-drone rifle shrunken down. Upon deployment, the Kludge Drone controls like your normal drone, however the catch is it will probably hack enemy gear with specialised bullets, which then flip towards their earlier proprietor. Some examples of hackable gadgets are Kapkan’s traps, the place hacking them will flip them towards him and trigger huge harm, or hacking Melusi’s Banshee machine. As “damaged” as that will appear, it will probably’t hack every thing, and what it will probably’t hack, it’ll destroy as an alternative.
Brava’s fairly enjoyable to make use of, although I can see her perpetuating that behavior of spending an excessive amount of time in a Drone when enjoying as an attacker. Nonetheless, very similar to most of the Operators at your disposal, there are many synergies Ubisoft focused when creating her, corresponding to working with IQ to find hackable electronics or working with Thatcher to disable then hack gear. Conversely, Operators like Solis can discover the Brava person along with her tech, Mozzie can seize the Kludge Drone, and Vigil can nonetheless vanish out of its imaginative and prescient, so there will probably be counters at your disposal.
Brava comes at an fascinating level in Siege’s lifecycle, as one of many largest areas for enchancment Siege wanted to deal with was accessibility for newcomers. Eight years later, there are over 65 completely different playable characters, making this a really overwhelming expertise for gamers, whether or not they’re model new or returning. With that in thoughts, Ubisoft got down to make her an accessible entry level as her equipment lets gamers uncover extra in regards to the know-how that adjustments rounds and a brand new system referred to as Onboarding.
New gamers will get entry to specialised newbie challenges that can present them the ropes in Siege by grouping Operator-specific challenges into Operator Specialties. These will present gamers how one can use a particular set of characters, corresponding to how one can use a personality’s equipment to assemble intel or what to breach as a breacher.
The rewards for finishing these challenges are notable, as you’ll earn renown boosters to assist purchase new characters and even straight-up unlock a personality. Veteran gamers may take part in these challenges, and the Onboarding system appears to be like like an incredible methodology to show gamers who’re simply coming into Siege all these years later. I’d even do these myself, as Siege is an enormous entity.
Many balancing adjustments are coming to Siege, with two massive ones concentrating on the reload system and Zero. Firstly, “reload canceling,” the act of interrupting a reload to proceed a combat, will now not be a factor, as Ubisoft intends to make reloading a significant interplay moderately than an motion that may be stopped. The concept is to advertise teamwork and communication. This comes off the heels of the large revamp to the recoil system made in Operation Brutal Storm and is an fascinating design path after eight years that’ll take a while to get used to.
Secondly, Zero’s ARGUS Launcher will now should manually pierce partitions, with the intention being to mitigate how typically it’s destroyed when shot at a wall. Teammates may swap the aspect of Zero’s digital camera, however they’ll’t pierce it, which is a neat change specializing in the teamwork of Siege.
Midseason will add a Ubisoft-designed program referred to as Mousetrap, which goals to fight gamers who use mouse and keyboard inputs on a console. If caught being a type of gamers, enter latency will ramp up over a number of matches, with the answer being to take away your mouse and keyboard enter on the console. There can even be a deal with anti-toxicity in voice chat, making use of penalties for a number of matches for being a poisonous pressure in-game. Simply be good, guys.
Lastly, the playlist sections are getting an overhaul, which excites me essentially the most, as you possibly can filter between the completely different tiers of aggressive, fast play, and customized video games. Together with that, PC gamers will get a direct choice to launch the Take a look at Server whereas in-game as an alternative of getting to shut out their program to open it. You’ll nonetheless have to have the Take a look at Server put in, however that’s huge nonetheless, as Ubisoft intends to get extra PC gamers to work together in Siege’s testing.
Ubisoft’s Rainbow Six Siege has turn into an entity bigger than life, because the French developer has fastidiously crafted a distinct segment out there for Siege. As talked about, eight years of help is a variety of content material, making it onerous for brand new or returning gamers to seek out an entry level. Nevertheless, this looks as if the proper time to hop on board, as Operation Commanding Pressure appears to be like to take cost and usher in a brand new period for Siege.
Operation Commanding Pressure takes cost of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege on March 7, 2023, for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Collection X|S, and PC. The Take a look at Server will go stay beginning Feb. 21.