For the first time in a Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six game, players will engage in sieges, a new style of assault where enemies have the means to transform their environments into modern strongholds while Rainbow Six teams lead the assault to breach the enemy’s position. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege gives players unprecedented control over their ability to fortify their position - by reinforcing walls and floors, using barbed wire, deployable shields and mines, and more - or breach the enemies’ using observation drones, sheet charges, rappelling, and more. The fast pace, lethality and uniqueness of each siege sets a new bar for intense firefights, strategic gameplay and competitive gaming.

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege also features a technological breakthrough that redefines the way players interact with a game environment. Leveraging Ubisoft Montreal’s proprietary Realblast engine, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege incorporates procedural destruction that is realistic and unscripted, meaning the environment reacts authentically, distinctively and dynamically, based on variables like the caliber of bullets or the amount of explosives used. This advance allows players to leverage destruction in meaningful ways. Walls can be shattered, opening new lines of fire. Ceilings and floors can be breached to create new access points. This ability to modify the level design in real time enables players to create new gameplay opportunities directly within the game level.

Ubisoft announced its plan for the Future of Siege. The continuous support and additions to Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege from the studio in the past years will continue in Year 6 and onward, with core gameplay changes coming throughout the year, new tools to encourage positive behavior, quality of life improvements and a comprehensive Year 6 roadmap, unveiling the nationality of the new Operators and the reworked maps.

During Year 5, Rainbow Six Siege released core updates such as Match Replay, sight color customization, six Operators, a completely reworked Tachanka and much more. Ubisoft’s long-term commitment to offer an ever more tactical, fair, and stable experience to all players continues in Year 6.

Year 6 Roadmap

Ubisoft announced the full details of the first season of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege Year 6: Crimson Heist. This new season introduces Flores, a new Argentinian Operator in the Rainbow Six Team, an entirely reworked Border map, additional features and Elite skins.

In Crimson Heist, players will discover a brand-new attacker: Flores. Equipped with an original gadget called the RCE – Ratero Charge, Flores can deploy a remote-controlled explosive device at his feet and drive it through the map during a limited period of time. At the end of the timer (or earlier if Flores chooses to), the device will arm itself, become bulletproof, and start a short fuze timer, at the end of which it detonates in a powerful explosion. Flores is armed with an AR33 or a SR-25 as a primary weapon, and a GSH-18 as a secondary weapon.

In addition to this new operator, players will have access to a reimagined Border map, which has been newly reworked with interior balcony connecting East staircase to Break room. The bathroom has also been extended to be connected to the Tellers. Players will play in a new challenging environment with some entry blocked, a reduced number of destructible walls and an additional outside staircase.

With this new season comes a new secondary gadget, “Gonne-6.” This new weapon will do little damage to soft walls and Operators. Boomstick should fight the torments of the “20-second meta” and the defense favored meta present in the Year 5. Additional updates presented in the Future of Siege will be implemented in Crimson Heist Test Server to get feedback from players, including Match Replay Beta and Streamer Mode.

Players will also have the pleasure to discover a new Elite skin for Kali: Masterframe Prototype coming on February 22.

The Test Server for Crimson Heist will go live on February 22. The Test Server is an alternative version of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege, allowing players to test upcoming gameplay features that will make their way into the main game itself. Since this is a testing environment, a consistent gameplay experience is not guaranteed on the Test Server. Players are invited to submit the issues they encounter on the Test Server on the R6 Fix platform: https://r6fix.ubi.com.

Season 2 will introduce an Operator from the Nakoda Nations and a rework of the map Favela. Season 3’s Operators will come from Croatia. During season 3, 3 maps will also be slightly reworked. To conclude, the last Operator of the year will be from Ireland, and the reworked map will be Outback.

Player Behaviour

A first version of the Reputation System has been shadow tested in the past new season, running in the background but not visible for players. The goal of this tool is to encourage positive behavior within the game by rewarding players with a positive impact on the game with in-game content, while punishing toxicity by limiting access to ranked playlist for instance. This tool will be transparent for players in order to inform them how to increase their scores and adapt their behavior. This tool will launch during Year 6.

As they are an essential part of the community, a streamer mode has been designed for content creators to control their anonymity when playing. This tool will allow them to hide their name, region and ping, hide everyone else in the match, include a hidden matchmaking delay, hide their current clearance level and profile image. A first version of this tool will be available in the Crimson Heist Test Server.

Core Gameplay Updates

A new secondary weapon is coming to Rainbow Six Siege - the Gonne-6. This one-bullet secondary weapon can destroy any bulletproof gadget and adds an extra loadout option to players, opening new tactical possibilities. The first version of the Gonne-6 will be available in the Crimson Heist test server for operators Glaz, Dokkaebi, Lion, Finka, Gridlock, Amaru, Iana and Zero.

Players will now be able to control cameras and gadgets after their death. This change has been made to intensify the support phase in a game, and make sure players that are out can better help their team. This feature is planned to release later in Year 6.

To balance Attack and Defense, the Attackers will now have the possibility to change their Operators and loadout as many times as they want in the preparation phase, making scouting even more tactical and offering many new tactical possibilities. This feature is planned to release later in Year 6. 

To conclude the gameplay updates, Armor will now be switch to Health, for players to have a better understanding on how much damage they can take. This feature is planned for Year 6.

Quality Of Life

In addition, quality of life improvements are planned during Year 6: DDoS attacks, already down by 90% this year, will still be a major focus to improve players’ experience. The technical team is working closely with our partner Microsoft Azure to keep reducing matchmaking time and to improve servers’ stability. Lastly, the development team is making a strong effort to reduce the game size in general. This is an ongoing effort already running and that will be more and more visible for players this whole year.

Customization

In Year 6, players will now have more customization options for their Operators: players will be able to adapt Elite skins and to add other gears in the outfit for a full customized set.

Last but not least, Ubisoft announced a partnership with Capcom and its survival horror franchise Resident Evil. An Elite skin of Resident Evil series veteran Jill Valentine will be available for Zofia, with an additional Resident Evil x Rainbow Six Siege skin coming in Year 6. Ubisoft has also partnered with Creative Director Ikumi Nakamura for the release of a series of skins, starting with Echo and Dokkaebi releasing on March 2.  

Key Features

• Counter terrorist operatives are trained to handle extreme situations, such as hostage rescue, with surgical precision. As “short range” specialists, their training is concentrated on indoor environments. Operating in tight formations, they are experts of close quarter combat, demolition, and coordinated assaults.
• For the first time in Rainbow Six, players will engage in sieges, a brand-new style of assault. Enemies now have the means to transform their environments into strongholds: they can trap, fortify, and create defensive systems to prevent breach by Rainbow teams. To face this challenge, players have a level of freedom unrivaled by any previous Rainbow Six game. Combining tactical maps, observation drones, and a new rappel system, Rainbow teams have more options than ever before to plan, attack, and diffuse these situations.
• Destruction is at the heart of the siege gameplay. Leveraging Ubisoft Montreal’s proprietary Realblast engine, players now have the unprecedented ability to destroy environments. Walls can be shattered, opening new lines of fire, and ceiling and floors can be breached, creating new access points. Everything in the environment reacts realistically, dynamically, and uniquely based on the size and caliber of bullets you are using or the amount of explosives you have set. In Rainbow Six Siege, destruction is meaningful and mastering it is often the key to victory.

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege is currently available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PC.