Rainbow Six Siege may have released at the end of 2015 but that hasn't stopped Ubisoft from pushing out regular free updates that not only add content but fix major issues present in the game. Ubisoft is about to release their next update titled Blood Orchid which will add new Operators and a brand new map as well as change a variety of different things.
Below, you'll find a list of all the changes and new additions courtesy of NeoGAF user Nirolak.
- 3 new operators (one attack, two defense, detailed below).
- A new theme park map set in Hong Kong.
- New cosmetics.
- Their new servers are deployed, which they say should dramatically improve performance, stability, and network conditions. They're also redoing the physics system to help with this at a later date.
- They redid how lighting works through holes in the wall/floor/ceiling so that you can clearly see stuff on the other side (images below).
- They upgraded the skies to look better.
- They upgraded the reflection model to look better.
- They're redoing the memory budget for all the maps to make them run better, starting with Kafe. In practice, this means they changed a bunch of textures (images below).
- The Operators all got a pass to have a consistent memory budget. They tried to downgrade memory usage on Operators who were too high without decreasing quality while upgrading the models on some of the older (images below).
- They redid the facial animation rigging on all Operators to make sure they matched the face model of the Operator's face better (images below).
- Hibana's gadget will be less broken.
- There will be more improvements to the netcode, especially around hit registrations, released throughout season 3.
- There's now a map rotation for competitive featuring nine maps, and two of the maps are being removed from casual to be reworked and re-added to the game. They stated they're intending to remove some maps permanently from the game due to technical issues, but after community reaction, assured everyone they will be discussing this issue internally and potentially backing out of the idea.
- You can no longer vote for which map you want to play on in casual, though they intend to bring that feature back at some point in a reworked version.
- There's a bunch of balance changes and mechanics changes. A few changes are that your crosshair no longer turning red when you're over an enemy, and that debris is synchronized so it doesn't block one person's view and not the other's. There's too many to list here, so hit the link for those.
- There's a non-exhaustive list of over 1000 bug fixes in the patch notes.
- Oh, and they completely switched the game's data model, which should shrink the game's total size while improving load time, visual quality on PC, and future patch size, but also means you're going to be downloading the entire game again. Consoles will load about 10% faster, while YMMV on PC. The download size is 15 GBs on consoles, 26 GBs for standard PC version, and 42 GBs for the high-resolution textures PC version.
Below you can view images and detailed descriptions of the new Operators: Ela, Ying, and Lesion.
Finally, here's a look at how the lighting has changed when you're looking through the hole of a destroyed surface. Previously, it could be a bit difficult to see people if you're trying to clear a room but now it's lit so you can make people out more easily.
The Blood Orchid update will launch on September 5th.