It has been over three months since Ubisoft announced a shift in the development focus for its over-20-million player strong tactical shooter, Rainbow Six Siege. This change meant temporality halting the development of new content for the game and instead giving attention to areas that needed fixing or gameplay improvements.
The improvement period is now at its end, and a brand new content update - which Ubisoft calls the biggest ever for Siege - is heading for the game tomorrow, on September 5. Titled Operation Blood Orchid, the update brings along three brand new operators, a new map, as well as a host of bug fixes and changes courtesy of Operation Health.
The first two operators are from Hong Kong's Special Duties Unit (SDU), and up first is Ying, who arrives wielding several 'Candelas'. This is a new non-lethal gadget that has the same functions as flash bangs, however, Ying is completely immune to their blinding effects. The Candelas can also be placed on walls, a la Fuze's Cluster Charge, to flash enemies residing on the other side.
Lesion is the SDU's second operator, reporting for duty with poison dart equipped 'Gu' mines that become invisible once placed. When triggered by an opposing operator, the dart latches on and cause damage over time while slowing movement, until they pull out the bothersome dart from their legs. While Lesion will only get two Gu mines at the start of a round, he will continue to receive an extra mine every 35 seconds up to a maximum of seven.
Showing up as the third operator is Ela from Poland's elite military unit, GROM. She is also equipped with a mine-based gadget named Grzmot; but unlike Lesion's these are non-lethal, arriving as proximity concussion mines. Any enemy operator that steps into its range will suffer a blast that will impair vision, movement speed, and aim. Moreover, Ela can even blow up a Grzmot mine while she is downed, in order to disorientate enemies around her.
The three operators will be available to the game's second season pass holders tomorrow, with them becoming available for purchase using in-game currency a week later. Meanwhile, the new map is an abandoned theme park, creatively named 'Theme Park', and like all Rainbow Six Siege maps, it arrives for free to all players.
The update's full changelog can be found here, coming with some welcome changes such as a new lighting system, reduced load times, improved servers, and much more. All in all, it will be interesting to see how the injection of new operators will change up the gameplay and strategies that players may be familiar with. Also, this is not the last content drop Ubisoft has planned for Rainbow Six Siege this year, with a Korea focused operation set to appear before the year's end.
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