During the Six Invitational 2019 for Rainbow Six Siege, details were revealed by Ubisoft Montreal about what we can expect to see in year 4 of the highly popular tactical shooter. Once again, the year will be broken up into 4 seasons, with the Australian focused Burnt Horizon being the first new set of content to be released this upcoming March.
Featuring 2 new operators and a medium sized map, Burnt Horizon will finally bring Australia to the world of Rainbow Six: Siege. The first operator is Tori “Gridlock” Tallyo Fairous, a farm girl from Central Queensland with training in the Australian Army Reserves and the Australian Special Air Service Regiment.
Gridlock is a 3 armour, 1 speed attacking operator who can deploy her Trax Stinger barbed mats throughout the environment. Originally they were designed to stop vehicles but these stingers are now used to slow down and damage enemies caught in them. Once throwing the device the mats begin to spread across the floor and cover a large surface area on the ground.
Defenders can shoot the Trax Stinger while it is deploying to stop it from spreading any further, but if Gridlock gets the chance to finish setting up you’ll be left with a nicely fortified area. Mats can be destroyed by shooting them or using explosives, however that will create noise and let players know that someone is trying to get through.
The other operator is Max “Mozzie” Goose, a talkative daredevil with training in the Australian Defence Force. Mozzie is a 2 armour, 2 speed defending operator who is able to launch autonomous bots that can hijack enemy drones. His gadget is called Pest, which be thrown and attached to surfaces. If an enemy drone enters its radius the Pest will leap up and latch itself onto the drone, giving Mozzie full control and turning it against the attacking players. This is bound to give Twitch a massive headache.
Outback is the Australian map to go along with the Burnt Horizon update. It is a medium sized, two level map that feels very different to a lot of the locations recently released – it plays very much like Oregon. Split up into 3 sections, Outback is easy to navigate and due to the internal colour scheme it doesn’t feel as if you are running around inside of a maze – which has been a problem for some of the other maps. To top it off Outback has a ridiculous amount of Australian references and easter eggs sprawled from one end to the other that that shows Ubisoft Montreal has spent a lot of time and fun creating the environment.
Information about what else is coming during the year was showcased, including some exciting map reworks for Kafe Dostoyevsky, Kanal, and Theme Park. A dedicated team has been created in Ubisoft Montreal that will handle balancing within the game – in doing so a few of the existing operators will be getting changes like Lion, Glaz, and Mute. Lion’s ability won’t show the outline of enemy players, instead you’ll get ping indications. Glaz’s IR scope will no longer highlight the thermal signature of enemies if he is moving, instead this will only work if he is standing still. And Mute will now counter Dokkaebi’s phone hack, his devices will cancel the incoming phone calls or stop them from ringing if you are within their range.
Improvements to player behaviour systems are being implemented including a reverse friendly fire mechanic that will punish those that decide to kill their own team members. A casual playlist will be added that allows newcomers to be introduced to a smaller selection of maps, before then moving to the larger pool.
The ranked game mode will be coming out of beta, which will see a range of features being added. From details about your performance, seasonal map rotations, and the addition of picks and bans – the ranked mode will now be more inline with the competition rules. Lastly in relation to esports there will be 4 majors for this year with Milan, North America, Asia, and Montreal hosting these events.
Rainbow Six: Siege is once again looking fantastic for the upcoming year. Australian operators are finally being added and they are a lot of fun to play, so that is sure to give a big boost in the local community. The game continues to grow at a remarkable rate as Ubisoft Montreal sets a benchmark on how to deliver games as a service post its initial launch.
Rainbow Six: Siege is available now on Windows PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.
Luke Lawrie traveled to Montreal, Canada as a guest of Ubisoft to cover the Rainbow Six: Siege Invitational.
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