Rainbow Six Siege Update Today Is 3.25GB, Adds New Content & Fixes

Update:

Ubisoft has detailed today’s patch, saying it adds new weapon skins, the Yacht Map (a luxury yacht hits an iceberg in the arctic Baffin Bay and Rainbow is sent to secure it), and a Spectator Camera, letting an 11th player join and switch between a tactical overhead view, a free-cam view, and a first-person view.

Here’s some highlights of the rest of the update:

Operation Black Ice also adds two new Operators from Canada’s Joint Task Force 2 counterterrorism unit, Frost and Buck. Frost, a Defender, comes equipped with a mechanical leg trap that’s undetectable by electronics scanners. Buck’s assault rifle carries a “Skeleton Key” underbarrel shotgun, letting this new Attacker quickly breach and switch to close-range combat. Season Pass holders get instant access to Frost and Buck with a seven-day period of exclusivity, while all players can unlock them with Renown or R6 Credits when that period is over on February 9.

The update to version 2.0 also includes a ton of alterations geared toward balancing and improving the experience for players. For starters, Attackers will now be able to pick individual spawn points instead of voting as a group, making it harder for Defenders to pick them off as they spawn. In the same spirit of making things a little harder on opponents, your Operator’s automatic shouts won’t be heard by the enemy team, so you won’t have to worry about accidentally giving away your position. Also, player ranks are being tweaked to enable more players to attain Gold, Platinum and Diamond status – and if you meet the new qualifications, you’ll see an immediate change.

You can view the full list of patch notes on the Rainbow Six website, with some of the changes listed below:

Balancing

Operator shouts are now muted for enemy team

From now on, the enemy team will not be hearing your team’s automatic character shouts. This will allow for stealthier approaches while maintaining non-verbal communication within the respective teams.

Defender objective rotation (for Ranked and Custom Games)

In Ranked and Custom Games, Defenders can vote for the objective location they want to defend. We noticed that certain maps have objective locations that are considered easier to defend than others, and that those are frequently being chosen. We believe that it will make for a more competitive and interesting experience to force variety upon the Defenders. From now on, when on the defending side, if a team wins an objective location, they won’t be able to pick it again until they’ve won the remaining locations. If the match goes into overtime, all objective locations become available again.

Reduced bullet trail intensity, especially for suppressed weapons

Reduced the visibility of bullet trails for all weapons, with an additional reduction for suppressed weapons for a stealthier approach. We believe this tweak will make silenced weapons more useful, as the damage reduction trade-off will now be more worthwhile, on top off the sound reduction.

Increased the flashbang range of effect

We are roughly doubling the range of flashbangs, making them more effective.

Reduced noise levels of multiple Defender gadgets

Reduced the noise levels of Mute’s jammers. It will now be considerably lower for Defenders and we reduced the verticality of its sound (will not be heard from two floors up or down anymore).

Reduced the electricity noise levels on electrified gadgets.

Reduced the noises levels of the Kapkan trap.

Reinforced walls and Castle barricades now block bullets while being deployed

It used to be possible to get shot while deploying reinforced walls and Castle barricades, even if they seemed to be covering the players. From now on, there will be collision on those surfaces even during deployment and therefore the bullets will be stopped.

Thatcher now has a shotgun available in his loadout options

We added the English shotgun M590A1 to Thatcher’s loadout options.

Removed Bandit’s unique gadget’s (CED-1) electricity damage on the hostage

Removed electricity damage on the hostage. This will avoid some edge cases where it wasn’t clear who was responsible for the hostage’s death.

Player Comfort

Added map and mode name display during loading and planning phase screens

Reduced screen dust effect

When surfaces break or explosions occur, nearby players get a dust effect on the border of their screen. We reduced it to be less intense and occluding.

Altered matchmaking timer display

Timer now counts up to estimated time.

Fixed weapon damage numbers in menus

We have changed the damage numbers in the menus according to the light armor values.

Playlist Changes

Individual spawn location selection for Attackers (Ranked, Custom Games setting)

In Ranked (and as a Custom Game setting), each Attacker can now select their own spawning location instead of having to vote as a group. This will give more tactical flexibility on approaching the building and will also greatly reduce the amount of instances in which Attackers get picked off as a group by the Defenders right as the Action phase begins (team spawn killing).

Ranked population repartition tweak

Our data tracking shows that the upper ranks (Gold, Platinum, Diamond) are less populated than expected. Therefore, we have reworked how our players are distributed through ranks. This means that many players will see their ranks change instantly after the February 2nd update.

Original Story:

With the maintenance now complete on PlayStation 4, the new Rainbow Six Siege update (1.06) is live. For Xbox One and PC owners, it will be live later today at around 7:30am PT/8:30am PT, and Ubisoft says you’ll need to restart your game to begin the download.

Reportedly weighing in at 3.25GB on PS4, update 1.06 hasn’t been detailed by Ubisoft yet, but users on Reddit have posted patch notes based on the Update History:

New gameplay feature

New Map

Network and connectivity improvement and fixes

Matchmaking optimization

Gameplay bugs and fixes

Game balancing fixes

Level design fixes

Weapon skin reward fixes

IA/navigation optimization fixes

Lag/FPS improvements

UI Fixes

Audio fixes

Localization fixes

Stability fixes

Season Pass owners gain instant access to the two new Operators today, while everyone else will have to wait until February 9. For non-Season Pass owners, the Rainbow Six Twitter account said, “The new operators will cost 25,000 renown or 600 Rainbow credits ($4.99) each, thanks.”

If Ubisoft gives out full patch notes, we’ll let you know.

[Source: Reddit, Ubisoft, Rainbow Six (Twitter)], Rainbow Six (1), (2)]

Essential Reading:

Hidden Gems 2016 Feature 1.12.16

Meet the Hidden Gems of 2016
Abzû — Release Date: TBA 2016

Giant Squid has set sights on a 2016 release for its upcoming PS4 console exclusive, Abzû. It was founded by Matt Nava, the esteemed art director that presided over two of thatgamecompany’s indie gems in Journey and Flower, but perhaps the studio’s game that Abzû bears the biggest resemblance to is Flow in that it takes the plunge into the deep blue.

At its core, Abzû is a stylized diving simulator, mixing together serene exploration and light RPG elements. On paper, PlayStation VR support seems inevitable further down the line, but even based on the aesthetic and Nava’s involvement alone, Abzû is bubbling to the surface as one of our most-anticipated games of the year.
Hyper Light Drifter — Release Date: Q2 2016

Nostalgia is a cruel mistress at times. Remember replaying childhood classics in the vein of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past only to find that they don’t quite hold up to your own personal expectations? Heart Machine is nurturing a workaround with its upcoming Kickstarter darling, Hyper Light Drifter.

A prolonged development may have cooled excitement for the studio’s multi-platform release (largely due to the health issues that have afflicted Lead Developer Alex Preston), but by infusing the rich gameplay elements associated with Diablo and The Legend of Zelda series, Hyper Light Drifter is a love letter to the 8-bit and 16-bit games of yesteryear in every which way. With zero spoken dialog, the creative team at Heart Machine is promising a story that will be told through music and visuals — and what visuals they are.
Boundless — Release Date: TBA 2016

Minecraft may have cemented the concept as a bankable formula for success, though the idea of building and maintaining your own pixelated home in a sandbox universe is still a tantalizing pitch for a game. Case in point: Wonderstruck’s upcoming open world title Boundless.

Hosting cross-platform play between PS4 and PC, Boundless will have all players inhabiting the same lush universe online when it launches later this year. Each world is intricately connected, too, with budding explorers able to hop through a portal into an entirely new planet. Moreover, these diverse environments are all guarded by an ancient titan; apex predators that require careful teamwork to topple if you are to harvest their precious resources.

Indeed Wonderstruck has claimed that Boundless is as much about writing your own story through exploration and interactions with other characters than anything else. Guess we ought to mark this one down as another universe we can lose ourselves in later this year.
Firewatch — Release Date: February 9, 2016

Arguably the prettiest indie headed to PlayStation 4 this year is Campo Santo’s debut title, Firewatch. Orbiting around Henry, a lonesome firefighter protecting the lush Shoshone Forest in ’89, the studio’s visually striking first-person adventure title has you exploring the rolling hills of the Wyoming wilderness, all the while trying to piece together an unsolved mystery as strange occurrences begin to rear their head.

VR support may be ruled out, and the core story driving Firewatch may only last for six hours, but we can imagine losing ourselves in Campo Santo’s PS4 console exclusive for much, much longer.
Manifold Garden — Release Date: TBA 2016

Prepare for some cerebral puzzles with Manifold Garden. The exploration puzzle game formerly known as Relativity is coming by way of independent developer William Chyr. If Monument Valley took cues from the architectural genius of M.C. Escher, then Manifold Garden ups the ante quite considerably, presenting a series of intricate puzzles that are, perplexingly, all connected to one another.

Unfolding like one giant piece of origami, Chyr has hinted at players being able to explore cerebral architectural riddles in a world “where physics is turned upside down.” Cue the inevitable Inception “BRRAAAAWWRWRRMRMRMMM!”
Dreams — Release Date: TBA

What’s the most resilient parasite? An idea, according to Christopher Nolan, but it’s also the core theme underpinning Media Molecule’s bold new IP, Dreams. While it’s still without a release date at the time of writing, a beta test has been slated for 2016 which ought to give us a clearer look under the hood of the studio’s most intriguing PS4 experiences.

During PSX 2015, our own Chandler Wood was flabbergasted at the unbridled creativity that Dreams offers, with the official logline from Media Molecule describing the game as so: "We’re building a place where you can go to explore the dreams of others, and then you can create your own.”

Exciting, yet enigmatic, and while Sony still has a long way to go before convincing the masses of the title’s potential, we’re hoping that this year’s beta will shed light on Media Molecule’s most peculiar title to date. All we need now is a good dream architect…And that is the third and final Inception reference, we promise.
What Remains of Edith Finch — TBA 2016

Based on the wonderful and serene The Unfinished Swan alone, Giant Sparrow’s follow-up, What Remains of Edith Finch, earns a place on this list from the off. But there’s a ominous tinge to the studio’s sophomore effort that distinguishes it from the coming-of-age story of Monroe. In exploring the dark corners of the Finch family, the developer’s generation-spanning tale centers on Edith as she begins to peel back the layers of history shrouding her family name.

As the last Finch left alive, there’s an abundance of mystery ready to be solved in Edith Finch’s narrative, and if Giant Sparrow carries over the touching and charming elements from Unfinished Swan then we could have another indie darling on our hands.
Yooka-Laylee — October 2016

First pitched as a spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie, Playtonic Games’ all-new adventure title Yooka-Laylee became the Kickstarter success story of 2015, breaking through all expectations to reach $3.2 million and make crowdfunding history.

Quite the feat, no doubt, but now comes the hard part: delivering on that vision. Having already plucked former Rare employees to join its ranks, Playtonic is crafting an old-school “collectathon” 3D platformer that intends to resurrect a genre that abruptly fell off a cliff in the late ‘90s.

Of course, it’s too soon to gauge whether Yooka-Laylee can emulate its own Kickstarter success upon release, though we’re confident that the creative team behind the N64 love letter can nurture the quirky chameleon and “wisecracking” bat into bona fide mascots.