During the final day of the BLAST R6 Major Manchester, Ubisoft unveiled all of the details regarding Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege Year 9 Season 2, Operation New Blood.
While the game's upcoming season won't include a brand-new operator, Ubisoft worked on re-shaping Recruit, who will be known as Striker (attacker) and Sentry (defender). Additionally, the new operation will bring changes to Fenrir and Solis' gadgets, the full release of Siege's marketplace, a new membership system, and more!
Here's everything you need to know about Operation New Blood!
Striker and Sentry to be released in Operation New Blood
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege's Recruit will be transformed with the arrival of Operation New Blood. With Operation New Blood, the players will be able to equip Striker and Sentry with two gadgets. Furthermore, their gun options have been completely transformed.
Starting from Year 9 Season 2, Striker (attacker) and Sentry (defender) will have access to every gadget in the game and will be able to combine them as they please, with only one limitation: they won't be allowed to bring two gadgets of the same kind. This means that Sentry won't be able to equip two C4s and Striker won't be able to carry six stun grenades. However, this opens many possibilities, especially with Striker, who we expect to regularly see with hard breaching charges and Impact EMPs.
Here's a closer look at Striker and Sentry:
Striker
Striker will be the attacker recruit and will be a two-health, two-speed operator. Their loadout will include the following guns and gadgets:
Primary Weapons
- Maverick's M4
- Capitão and Gridlock's M249
Secondary Weapons
- Ash and Thermite's 5.7 USG
- Jackal and Frost's ITA 12S
Gadgets
- Stun Grenades
- Hard Breaching Charges
- Fragmentation Grenades
- Impact EMP
- Smoke Grenades
- Claymore
- Soft Breaching Charges
Sentry
Sentry will be the defender recruit and will be a two-health, two-speed operator. Their loadout will include the following guns and gadgets:
Primary Weapons
- IQ and Grim's Commando 9
- Jäger and Bandit's M870
Secondary Weapons
- Vigil and Dokkaebi's C75 Auto
- Gridlock and Castle's Super Shorty
Gadgets
- Impact Grenades
- Deployable Shield
- Barbed Wire
- Nitro Cell
- Proximity Alarm
- Observation Blocker
- Bulletproof Camera
Solis and Fenrir to be nerfed in Operation New Blood
Plain and simple, both Solis and Fenrir will be nerfed in Operation New Blood, with the changes targeting a reduction of their gadgets' efficiency. Here's more about these tweaks!
Solis
Solis' most notable change is that she won't be allowed to use her SPEC-IO Sensor during the preparation phase. Her drone hunting days are over.
Additionally, the timer of her SPEC-IO Sensor has been reduced from 20 to 10 seconds. If that wasn't enough, players won't be allowed to use the gadget if it's not fully charged. Last but not least, Solis' gadget's range of action has been nerfed too.
Fenrir
Although Fenrir's changes aren't as deep as Solis', the defender is also getting a big nerf. Starting with the number of devices, Fenrir will only carry four mines (instead of five). Moreover, the number of activation codes has been reduced from three to two. However, he will get a code back every time somebody destroys a mine.
Ubisoft have also tweaked the bulletproof status of Fenrir's mines, with these losing their bulletproof condition every time the gadget has been triggered once. After that, the mine won't get back its bulletproof condition, even if Fenrir decides to close it.
Fenrir's last change is in his loadout, as Ubisoft will remove Fenrir's Barbed Wire to give him Observation Blockers.
New Rainbow Six Siege membership coming with Operation New Blood
With Operation New Blood, Ubisoft is introducing a membership system. With it, players will be able to unlock unique cosmetics and other advantages.
Every month, players will have access to the Premium Battle Pass, which will include different cosmetics every month valued at 4,500 R6 Credits. The rewards for each month will be given to the enrolled players on the 28th of every month.
According to today's panel, players who enroll in the membership before June 27 will have access to the first drop, which will include:
- Ash Epic Bundle
- 10 Battle Level Skips
- One Bravo Pack
- Warden Legendary Weapon Skin
Players who join the membership during the whole season will also be given an operator voucher.
Additionally, players will have access to the Battle Pass, which will include:
- One Operator Voucher
- Exclusive Skins
- 18 Bravo Packs and one Bravo Ticket
- 600 R6 Credits
- 10% discount on in-game store
- 30% Battle Pass Progression
Marketplace to be fully released with Operation New Blood
On January 30, Ubisoft opened the Marketplace, a website where players can sell their cosmetics for R6 Credits. So far, the reviews have been great despite players only being able to sell certain skins.
However, with the launch of Operation New Blood, all players above level 25 will be able to sell their skins on the marketplace. Moreover, Ubisoft will introduce new functions to the website.
New training and warming-up playlist called Endless Drill
Endless Drill will be deployed to Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege's live version with the launch of Operation New Blood. This game mode is considered to be a training and warming-up play list as players will be able to play the map that they want for one hour while infinite static enemies spawn around the map.
Once you start an Endless Drill match, Mira will give you the location (which can be deactivated) of each one of the enemies on the map. After clearing the basement (if there's one) you will have to move to the first and the second floor. Once you have cleared the map, the objectives will be restored and the static bots will spawn again.
Fenrir to get next Elite Bundle
Fenrir is getting an Elite Bundle on Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege! The defender, who will be nerfed in Operation New Blood, will be given the Oneirophobia Elite Set.
Attrition temporarily back to Arcade playlist
Attrition will be added to Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege's Arcade playlist with the launch of Operation New Blood. The game mode will make a brief return from June 18 to July 2.
Attrition is a game mode where the five operators used in a round get automatically blocked for the rest of the match. Therefore, after using one operator, players can't use it again.
Stadium Alpha and Stadium Bravo to lose bulletproof glass
Ubisoft realized how much of an advantage the bulletproof glass located on Stadium Alpha and Stadium Bravo gave the players. The attackers had the option to place an almost indestructible drone outside the bulletproof glass to have a constant flow of information. Meanwhile, defenders could use it to spawn peek or to know the exact location of the attackers, which combined with the yellow ping was extremely deadly.
Therefore, Ubisoft's developers decided to make changes to Stadium Alpha and Stadium Bravo, as they will lose those annoying bulletproof glasses. Moreover, tweaks will be made to some rooms and doors inside the maps.
Player Protection
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege's Reputation System won't be experiencing any changes as the developer team decided to keep it in its beta stage until Season 4. Therefore, we will have to wait a few more months to see its final shape. Until then, Ubisoft will keep listening to the player's feedback.
Spectator Changes
Ubisoft are introducing changes to the spectator mode, as they are replacing the big operator window with minimal operator windows to not block most of the spectator's point of view.