Ubisoft unveiled what"s coming next to its tactical shooter Rainbow Six Siege in a presentation today. Year 9 Season 3: Operation Twin Shells brings a brand-new operator and her unique remote-controlled fighters, balance changes to Solis, Nøkk, and Dokkaebi, better AI, and more.
Hailing from Greece, Skopós is joining the Defending team, and she is touting access to two robots, which are called Shells in-game, as her gadget. Named Talos and Colossus, both count as operators that Skopós is controlling remotely from out of the map, so she can"t be actually found in a round.
Each Shell is equipped with a PCX-33 assault rifle, a P229 Pistol as secondary, as well as Impact Grenades and Proximity Alarms.
Skopós is only able to control one Shell at a time, letting her switch between them at will. However, if even one of them gets destroyed by the enemy as Skopós is controlling them, then she is considered out of the game like any operator, so there isn"t a second life mechanic at play here.
Above you can check out a video of the shells and powers in action, while below is a breakdown of their performance in the field:
The active shell can do anything an Operator can; the same movement, shooting, and secondary-gadget usage rules apply. They are 2-speed 2-health when active, and when inactive, they assume a crouched position and deploy a bulletproof barrier in front of them. The inactive shell also functions as an observation tool for the defense, and it is by accessing the observation controls of her inactive shell that Skopós can switch to make it the active one.
As for counters, the bulletproof window inactive shells put up can be destroyed with explosives, and there is also a certain angle that attackers can use to kill it off easily too. As for gadgets, EMP grenades and hacks can also mess with inactive shells, while Brava can use the Kludge Drone to destroy an inactive one completely by overheating them if Skopós doesn"t switch back in time.
The active shell isn"t affected by any of these (functioning as a normal operator), but it cannot utilize Rook"s armor plates and can"t receive healing from anybody. On the plus side, being robotic, Shells can"t be affected by toxic gas or poison effects of other operators either.
As for other changes, drones are gaining a boost ability to speed up and get away, or go into areas much quicker. This is a limited use power for each drone though. An in-game tournament system named the Siege Cup, which will hit PC players first in a beta state first. The ability to warm up in the in-game Shooting Range as matchmaking is happening is coming. Moreover, Ubisoft is touting much improved cheat detection tools now too.
Rainbow Six Siege Year 9 Season 3: Operation Twin Shells first hits test servers on August 26, letting players try out the new Operator and changes so Ubisoft can make tweaks and bugfixes if needed. Once everything is stable, Ubisoft plans to ship the complete update across live servers on all platforms starting September 10.