Ubisoft kicks off Rainbow Six Siege Year 8 with the new Season 1 Operation Commanding Force, as well as the new Operator Brava. Here's all the information we have about Rainbow Six Siege Year 8, its Operations, new Operators, and more.

Rainbow Six Siege New Operators

Let's start off with the new Brazillian Operator Brava.

Brava is a 1 Health 3 Speed Attacker with a special drone as her Unique Ability. The drone, called the Kludge Drone, brings a whole new level of excitement and planning to Rainbow Six Siege. Similar to Mozzie's Pest Launcher, the Kludge Drone can hijack enemy gadgets and Unique Abilities. Everything from bulletproof cameras, Echo's drone, Maestro's Evil Eye, and more, can be taken over by Brava. Of course, as it is a drone, Mozzie's Pest Launcher can take it over as well, allowing him to use the Kludge Drone against the attackers.

Brava's Primary Weapon choices include the Para-308 assault rifle, as well as the CAMRS marksman rifle. For Secondray options, she can bring either the USP40 handgun or the Super Shorty shotgun. She has access to either smoke grenades or claymores as a gadget.

Now let's talk about the Operator that arrived with Season 2: Operation Dread Factor.

Fenrir is a 2 Health, 2 Speed Defender with a special mine, called the F-NATT Dread Mine. This mine releases a Fear Effect gas whenever an attacker approaches an activated one. Once triggered, anyone in the vicinity except Fenrir will have their field of view limited. Fenrir will have five of these mines, with the ability to activate up to three of them at a time.

For loadout options, Fenrir has the MP7 SMG and the SASG-12 shotgun as their primary options. He only has the Bailiff 410 as a secondary option. He can also choose to bring either barbed wire or a Bulletproof Camera as secondary gadgets.

After Fenrir comes Ram, the Operator for Season 3: Operation Heavy Mettle

Ram is a 3 Health, 2 Speed Attacker with the BU-GI Auto-Breacher. The BU-GI Auto-Breacher is capable of destroying any and all destructible surfaces in its path, including soft walls, destructible floors, non-reinforced trap doors, deployable shields, Defender gadgets, and more.  It will only stop once it reaches a non-destructible object or wall, or if it gets destroyed.

For loadout options, Ram has the R4C assault rifle and the LMG-E light machine gun as their primary options. For secondary weapons, Ram can use either the ITA 12S shotgun or the MK1 9mm pistol. She can use either a stun grenade or a hard breach charge as her secondary gadget.

The final Operator coming to Rainbow Six Siege for Year 8 is none other than Tubarao.

Tubarao is a 2 Health, 2 Speed Defender with the Zoto Canister. The Zoto Canister is a throwable gadget that can be deployed on walls, floors, and ceilings. Once deployed, it will freeze everything in a certain radius. Gadgets caught in the radius will stop working, while units stepping into the ice field will be slowed, with their footsteps revealed to players below them. Once the gadgets thaw out, they will resume working. As such, unlike Kaid's Electroclaw, Mute's Jammer, or Bandit's Batteries, this gadget is more for buying time than actually destroying Attacker gadgets.

For loadout options, Tubarao can equip either an MPX Submachine gun or the AR-15.50 Marksman Rifle. Additionally, Tubarao has the P226 Mk 25 pistol as his secondary weapon. He can also bring Nitro Cells or Proximity Alarms as as secondary gadget.

Rainbow Six Siege New Operation

Now, let's talk about the contents of Operation Commanding Force, starting with Player Protection. Ubisoft plans to continue prioritizing player protection throughout the year. For starters, they are introducing the new QB security system, which should increase the difficulty of making cheats for the game, like wallhacks, aimbots, and the like.

They are also introducing Mousetrap to the game, specifically for the console version of the game. Using a mouse and keyboard on the console version of the game counts as cheating, so Mousetrap is designed to keep the playing field fair for console players. Mousetrap will be receiving updates throughout the year, and is also the first notable example of such a feature in any competitive games.

Alongside the Reputation System, the team plans to introduce a Player Commendation System. This lets players rate their experience playing with players on their team. The R6S team will be monitoring this feature to ensure fairness. There is also a new Reputation Penalty via abusive voice chat. Players who voice hateful and disruptive content in a voice chat will find themselves automatically muted. Repeat offenders will find themselves getting an active penalty for 30 matches.

Finally, there will be new requirements for players who want to play Ranked. This aims to reduce inadequate accounts and surfing. Privacy Mode will also launch on consoles for all players.

Moving on, the team is also working on launching updates for console players this year. Other than Mousetrap and Privacy Mode, they are also planning to introduce controller layout flexibility and controller remapping. They are also updating Quick match to make it stand out as much as Ranked and Unranked. This should cut down the downtime in Quick Match, and reduce repetition.

There will also be a refresher coming in the Play Section menu UI, with three categories – Competitive, Quick Play, and Training – containing new playlists. Players will be able to directly access their last played playlists inside that category.

There will also be a new onboarding procedure for new Rainbow Six Siege players. Beginner Challenges will arrive in Season 1, which allows new players to unlock new Operators as they play, as well as learn how to play the game. Season 2 will introduce the Aiming Lane to the Shooting Range, which lets players customize skills, movement, target quantity, and other customizations. Season 3 will bring in Playable tutorials: new maps for players to learn gameplay elements like destruction, verticality, and more. Finally, Season 4 will introduce the Defender AI playlist, which lets players learn how to play new Operators and maps.

Let's move on to some of the balance changes coming this season.

  • Operator Balancing
    • Twitch: Shock Drone deceleration power increased. This makes the drone stop sooner after releasing movement inputs.
  • Game Balancing
    • Removing the magazine prevents the player from shooting. If the weapon is a closed bolt weapon, there will be one round in the weapon that they can fire during the reload animation
    • Changes to two attachments
      • Muzzle Brake: first bullet kick reduction increased to 50% from 45%
      • Compensator: Horizontal recoil reduction increased to 35% from 15%

For a more detailed explanation of Operation Commanding Force, you can head over to our dedicated article for the operation.

Operation Dread Factor, on the other hand, introduced the new Operator Fenrir, as well as a rework of the Consulate map. This operation also brought with it the new Observation Blocker gadget, which blocks cameras from drones and the like from seeing what's on the other side. While originally set to come out during Season 3, it would appear that Ubisoft decided to release the gadget early. Dread Factor also brings in some balance changes for Grim, rather than the expected rework for Frost. The balance change aims to improve Grim's gadget, to make him a viable choice in Operator picks.

The operation also brings with it improvements to the shooting range, as well as a Permanent Arcade Playlist with game modes such as Golden Gun, Headshots Only, Team Deathmatch, and more. Finally, they added more controller layouts to the game, as well as a Free Camera in Match Replay. For more detailed explanations about Operation Dread Factor, you can head over to our dedicated article for the operation.

Operation Heavy Mettle introduced the new South Korean Operator Ram, as well as some operator updates. Specifically, changes were made to Grim, Fuze, and Frost (although Frost's change will come later in the season). Grim's Kawan Hive Launcher now has the option to bounce the bee canisters before it activates. Fuze can now place Cluster Charges on deployable shields of any kind. Lastly, Frost's Welcome Mats will receive an update. Players can now escape from them on their own, but will suffer from lowered movement speed, increased noise generation, and a very visible trail of blood.

The operation also brings a brand new Weapon Roulette game mode to the Permanent Arcade Playlist. Shotguns are also getting some buffs, and Quick Match will receive some early-round changes. A new set of required onboarding tutorials will be added, as well as a free camera option for spectators in Match Replay. For more detailed explanations about Operation Heavy Mettle, you can head over to our dedicated article for the operation.

Finally, there's Operation Deep Freeze, the final Operation for Year 8. It introduced the Portuguese Operator Tubarao, as well as a new map: Lair. The operation also brings in nerfs to the game's Frag Grenades, while also giving Frag Grenade access to Sens, Osa, Lion, Blackbeard, and IQ. The operation also plans to bring in a Marketplace to the game similar to the skin market in Counter-Strike 2.

There are also new Training Modes for players to learn more about the game's mechanics before jumping into the game itself. Finally, the operation brings console improvements, improvements to the game's Battle Pass UI, and more. For more detailed explanations about Operation Deep Freeze, you can head over to our dedicated article for the operation.

Finally, let's talk about what else is left in the development roadmap for Rainbow Six Siege Year 8.

Players can expect two more Operators to arrive on Year 8 in Rainbow Six Siege, one each from Korea and Portugal. There will also be a new map down the line. There will also be a Frost Operator rework, so players can look forward to that. Players can also expect a revamped shield mechanism later this year.

That's all the information we have about Rainbow Six Siege's Year 8 so far, including the new Operations and Operator. For more gaming news from us, you can check out our gaming news articles.