Siege's weakest operator, Grim, is set to get a gadget rework in Year 8

Singaporean operator Grim was added to Rainbow Six Siege in Sep. 2022 with the launch of Y7S3 Operation Brutal Swarm. However, while developers had high hopes for him, players have not been enthused by what he offers.

His ranked presence hovers at around two to three percent, while his win delta is close to a negative two percent. Only Sens has a lower presence and win rate, though the Operation Vector Glare operator has seen a fair amount of experimentation in professional play.

Now, Ubisoft have teased further changes coming to Grim after he was given the 1.5x and 2.0x scopes and the extended barrel on his 552 Commando in the most recent seasonal update. The latter change has made him extremely powerful against one-armour defenders, who will get downed within two shots.

Rainbow Six Siege creative director Alexander Karpazis shared in an interview with SiegeGG that those changes were just the “first step” and teased upcoming changes to his gadget as well. While he declined to give any details, he revealed that Ubisoft is already “working on some prototypes”.

What’s the problem with Grim?

Grim has largely been panned for his unique gadget, the Kawan Hive launcher, which is a shoulder-mounted launcher that shoots out a swarm of bee-like nanobots. These nanobots give live pings to attackers when defenders walk through them, which sounds strong on paper -- but it has been anything but.

For one, the Kawan Hive launcher takes a significant amount of time to equip and unequip, taking away valuable time that Grim players can have their guns up. Additionally, there is a long downtime between shots of the nanobots, which further makes Grim vulnerable when using his utility. 

Many Rainbow Six Siege players have also rightly pointed out that his proposed use-case of roam-clearing is better done by a drone, rather than the cumbersome launcher, or by another operator like Jackal, Dokkaebi, or Lion. His utility in the post-plant is somewhat stronger, but is still less powerful than operators like Lion or operators with fragmentation grenades.

Finally, his secondary gadget and weapon options were also not enticing enough to use despite his weak utility. However, this was recently changed, with Grim now having access to the 1.5x and 2.0x scopes. He also is able to use the extended barrel on his 552 Commando, which can now hit as hard as 54hp per shot.

Rainbow Six Siege players will thus be hoping that the upcoming changes teased by Ubisoft give them a strong reason to pick him despite the introduction of the must-pick Brava and other, strong operators.