It was during the final of the North American Major that Ubisoft revealed the details of the next operation to come to Rainbow Six: Siege. And behind the legend that came out of Splinter Cell, there are a lot of changes coming for competitive FPS.
Banner Image Credit: Ubisoft
Master Splinter seals his return
While his absence has lasted far too long for many fans, Sam Fisher’s big comeback will be in Rainbow Six: Siege. New operator for the attack, the famous secret agent will therefore arrive with Operation Shadow Legacy, and his gadget focused on gathering information. His “Argus Launcher” will fire a projectile that can pierce reinforced walls, and obtain vision on either side. Each camera thus placed is also equipped with a shot allowing the destruction of enemy gadgets.
Sam “Zero” Fisher will be armed with his iconic SC3000K, as well as a claymore or frag grenade.
But behind the Fisher “tree” hides a forest of changes to come, to the point that one of the designers in charge of R6S asserted on Twitter that next season would be the biggest meta shift for the game since its launch. And we must recognize that in view of the presentation unveiled yesterday, we can only agree with him.
Shadow Legacy, a deep breach in the meta
First of all, these are several additions that had already been announced during the last Six Invitational last February, which will finally be implemented. The new ping 2.0 system, providing contextual information, should improve communication within the squad. A choice of elimination card from three on offer should also lower players’ frustration with some unloved cards.
But it is above all the arrival of a new secondary gadget to pierce reinforced walls that should really shake up the meta, especially at the level of team compositions. Slower to trigger, it pierces a fairly small hole, but still allows passage crouching or jumping. If this new tool should not completely replace the agents specialized in the heavy breach, it should however greatly relax the attack phases. The agents affected by this new secondary gadget are:
- Mountain (replaces flash grenades)
- Ying (replaces breach charges)
- Fuze (replaces smoke bombs)
- Finka (replaces breach charges)
- Amaru (replaces the Claymore)
- Nokk (replaces breach charges)
- Capitao (replaces flash grenades)
- Lion (replaces the Claymore)
Still in the breach radius, Thatcher’s EMP grenade sees a change that will completely shake up his interactions. This is because EMP will no longer destroy any defense gadgets, but will only deactivate them, like its current effect on Maestro’s Evil Eyes, for example. This deactivation will last 15 seconds, but will be canceled if the operator concerned picks up his gadget. The detailed patch note specifies the following list of affected gadgets:
- The C4
- Kapkan’s traps
- Les ADS de Jäger
- Lesion’s Gu mines
- Ela GRZMOT mine
- Mute’s signal jammer
- Smoke’s gas grenade
- Kaid’s Rtila Electrograft
- Mozzie’s Parasite Launcher
- Bandit’s batteries
- Le drone Yokaï d’Echo
Pierce the meta
It is therefore a profound change which is coming in the way of approaching the breach. Communication and coordination around Thatcher, the most effective operator to counter protections against breaches like Bandit, will be essential. Where he could just throw in an EMP and go about his business, he would now have to work together with his teammates in charge of the heavy breach. However, it will be necessary to keep an eye on the reaction of the competitive community, whose grievances in recent months concerned the too many gadgets to destroy to lead an assault. The end of Thatcher’s massive destruction should have a decisive effect in this radius.
Still on the subject of reinforcements, the defense will now have a common pool of wall reinforcements, instead of two walls per player. A welcome relaxation, especially for operators with already a lot of preparation work, like Kapkan or Castle.
Finally, the development team wants to experiment with automatically reinforced hatches on the roofs. A change for now to come on test server only, however.
Another major novelty to arrive on the TTS, the famous system of “Replay” of the parts. Allowing you to review a game played previously from any angle, it is a fundamental tool for the analysis and strategic work of competitive players. It will allow local recording of its last twelve games, through a new “Watch” tab in the game’s main menu.
It was explained to us during the Six Invitational by Leroy Athanassoff last winter.
Will players’ ACOG-luche change?
Another major point is almost a complete overhaul of the sights that will be implemented. With the addition of two new zoom levels, namely x1.5 and x2.0, these new sights will be accompanied by sensitivity settings specific to each. The customization will go further, with the choice of colors of the reticles as well as their opacity. The famous ACOG and its x2.5 will no longer be the sole master in its kingdom, and these new sights should significantly change the balance of power between the agents. It will therefore also and above all be a new tool available for Ubisoft for balancing operators, developers sometimes lacking levers to modulate the meta.
Credit: Ubisoft
To complete this overview, a new platform called SquadFinder is already available, to help players find teammates. A new detailed statistics interface will also be added, as well as the overhaul of the Chalet map.
As usual, Operation Shadow Legacy will first be deployed on Technical Test Servers, before its official launch in a few weeks. An update that will be watched very, very closely, as it has the potential to fundamentally change the game’s strategies.
–
