Every year, Ubisoft releases four seasonal updates for its long-supported tactical shooter Rainbow Six Siege. It is now almost time for the next content drop. Ubisoft today gave a hefty look at Year 8 Season 3: Operation Heavy Mettle, revealing a brand-new operator hailing from South Korea, a rework of quick match settings, a new arcade mode and more.
The new operator, Ram, is joining the attacker side of the tactical shooter. Her special ability comes from her destructive robot named the BU-GI Auto-Breacher. As seen in the showcase video above, the BU-GI robots can chew up any destructible floor and barrier in front of them when thrown, both creating large openings to shoot through and clearing obstacles. Ram gets a three of these per round.
"During its drive, the BU-GI causes an absolute ruckus. About once per second, it explodes the floor beneath it, opening up impact-sized holes in soft floors," Ubisoft explains. "It will also destroy any deployable shields, Castle barricades, and barbed wire in its way, and will trigger enemy traps (Lesion, Thorn, low-install Kapkan, etc.)."
To counter BU-GIs, defenders can use explosives to blow them up, or shoot at the red canister situated behind the devices. Mute can also stop the robots in their tracks with his jammers.
Next up, Quick Match rounds are being changed to make them actually quick. Players will find that a few walls are already reinforced, and some even have rotational holes, at the start of the match to make things flow faster. Moreover, the developer is reducing match timers, and even giving attackers 10 seconds of spawn protection at the beginning to avoid getting peeked by attackers.
Meanwhile, the new Weapon Roulette Arcade mode begins with all players having the same random weapon being chosen for them. At certain intervals, the chosen weapon will be changed match-wide, keeping things continuously hectic.
Other changes of this season include a new three-part tutorial, a shotgun balance pass, and small-scale gadget usage changes for Grim, Frost, and Fuze.
Rainbow Six Siege Year 8 Season 3: Operation Heavy Mettle is hitting test servers first starting on August 14, followed by a full release for all players in late August if testing goes as planned. While the rest of the operation is free for all players, the new operator will be premium battle pass exclusive for the first two weeks, with her being available for unlock with Renown or R6 Credits afterward.