Rainbow Six Siege hosted its latest community checkpoint today from Ubisoft’s Community Lounge at Gamescom. These livestreams provide an opportunity for the Siege developers to talk directly to you, the players, about recent updates and coming plans to provide more transparency about the game. In this community checkpoint, the developers talked about the newly-announced Rainbow Six Tactics and the expanding Siege universe, gave a deep dive into Noor’s backstory, announced an exciting planned uptick in Operators, and discussed what’s coming in Rainbow Six Siege.
Siege Universe
Taking place alongside Siege’s narrative, Rainbow Six Tactics is a new, single-player turn-based tactical experience. In Tactics, players take on the role of Six, the commander of the elite force, after a new global threat emerges, pushing Rainbow’s operations to a global scale. At its core, Tactics is about leading Rainbow and putting the tactical DNA at the heart of Rainbow Six Siege through the ultimate test.
Because the two narratives are connected, the Rainbow Six Siege developers worked with the Tactics team to develop lore elements in the new game as well as develop narrative points in Siege. The canon content in both games was carefully created to be purely additive; you’ll find the lore enriching even if you only play one game, but if you play them both, you’ll see how they fit together to show the full picture in the Rainbow Six universe.
With the philosophy of building for the future while enriching the past, the Rainbow Six universe is poised to be richer than ever, with more opportunities for expansion moving forward.
Noor Deep Dive
Year 9 Season 1, Operation Deadly Omen, brought major updates to how shields function in Rainbow Six Siege, reinforcing their role in gameplay and make them more reliable when used correctly. In doing so, however, the game needed a way to give players more options into how they interact with – and oppose – shields. Enter Noor, the newest Defender who came to the game during the recently-launched Operation Split Fire, who was designed specifically as the answer to dealing with shield Operators.
Rainbow is in Ahmed Noor’s blood. His father is Jamal Murrad, a former Rainbow and Unit 777 Operator who longtime Rainbow players might recognize from Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear and Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield. Ahmed grew up around the world as his father went on various deployments, including Hereford base and his native country, Egypt. He may have tried to avoid following in his father’s footsteps, but there’s no outrunning the past. As he came into his own, he trained with Unit 777, as well as different global organizations like Delta Force, SAS, and GIGN, forging close bonds that will follow him wherever he goes.
Noor’s Horus Lance Launcher, his primary gadget, fires a projectile that pierces shields and destructible objects before spewing flames on either side, severely burning anyone in its immediate proximity. When the projectile hits, it causes a guard break, giving you or your teammates an opening to take a shot. Enemy Operators can stop the flames by swiping the projectile off their shield, creating another opening for your team to take them out. If you find yourself facing a shield-heavy team, try teaming Noor up with Denari, Clash, Goyo, and Oryx are still solid Operator options to mitigate your opponent’s presence. At the end of the day, developers want to make sure you have enough tools and options that, combined with good drone recon and team communication, you can tackle any opposition.
Four Operators Per Year
Starting in Year 12, Rainbow Six Siege will go back to introducing four new Operators per year. This will help deliver more content to players, while simultaneously keeping the game fresh and constantly evolving through the seasons. Operators take varying times to plan, as they are used to address varying gameplay needs, such as Noor being created in response to needing a competitive answer to shield Operators. The timing also depends on the tech needs of the Operator – Skopos took years to make while the team worked to make the enhancements needed for his design possible, while Solid Snake had completely different technical needs and had a smoother design process, even with putting in extra time collaborating with Konami to ensure the end product was authentic.
At a high level, one of the first things the development team decides on when designing a new Operator is where they are from. One of the underlying messages of Siege is the idea that to save the world, we have to work together, so the team is always interested in bringing in Operators from new countries, but also want to deepen connection with countries that are important to the Siege community.
Looking ahead to the Operator-packed future, developers are looking forward to amplifying squad play and teams that work together with tactical cohesion.
The Future of Rainbow Six Siege
As Rainbow Six Siege settles into its new cadence, the developers will continue to evaluate the path forward to keep the core systems and essence of the game engaging for the community. Some of this is concrete, and will bring new features, new stories, and new Operators to the game. Some is a little less defined, but still critical to a competitive Siege experience, like continuing to fine-tune gameplay for team balancing. Based on player enthusiasm, there are also plans to push the 1v1 and 3v3 Arcade game modes further in future seasons, and the team is actively working on a Hostage Rework. There are even more surprises in store for the coming years and seasons in Rainbow Six Siege – including the death of a playable Operator.
Play Rainbow Six Siege today on PlayStation, Xbox, or PC via the Ubisoft Store, Steam, or the Epic Games Store. You can also play with a Ubisoft+ subscription.