During the championship weekend of the Six Invitational, Ubisoft has announced that it will be revealing a new era of Rainbow Six Siege on March 13 at the Siege X Showcase in Atlanta, Georgia. A new attacker operator named Rauora, who hails from New Zealand, will also join Rainbow Six Siege.
The teaser for the big upcoming Siege update describes it as the game’s “biggest transformation” yet. This will include both graphical and audio improvements, as well as “deepened tactical gameplay,” although no specifics were shared. Additionally, Ubisoft said there will be “new ways to play,” but again didn’t say if that would come in the form of new game modes or something else.
Rauora will be available to play at the start of the upcoming Year 10 Season 1 as part of the Operation Prep Phase battle pass, and will be unlockable with Renown or R6 credits after two weeks.
Rauora is equipped with the 417 designed marksman rifle or the M249 light machine gun as her primary weapon, and the GSH-18 9mm pistol or the new Reaper MK2 machine pistol as her secondary. The latter has a red dot sight and an extended magazine. Her special gadget is the Deployable Omnilink Mesh Launcher, or DOM. It’s a smart bulletproof barrier that can only be used in doorways and reaches all the way to the ground. As a smart cover, DOM can sense when ally drones are nearby and will let them through by lifting itself up.
DOM also has a trigger at the top that can be opened by any operator through shooting it. While both attackers and defenders can open and close the barrier, the attacking side has more benefits. Defenders will be locked out for a short time when the barrier is first deployed or has just closed, and only an attacker’s presence will open it again. It also opens up much faster when an attacker triggers it.
While Rauora’s barriers are bulletproof, they are still susceptible to explosions. They also cannot remove Castle’s reinforced barricades if it’s already out or used while Tubarão’s Zoto Canister is in effect. Jäger’s ADS gadget can also take out DOM before it gets a chance to even deploy.
Rainbow Six Siege was released in 2015 and has been one of Ubisoft’s premiere live-service games since. It’s gotten a ton of support of the years, most recently full cross-play as well as stricter anti-cheat measures, including cheaters being instantly perma-banned.
Despite rumors of a sequel, Rainbow Six creator director Alexander Karpazis claimed that its a game that can “last forever,” which is good news for the nearly decade-old game. Separately, Ubisoft’s executives said that they are doubling down on open-world and live-service games going forward.