Rainbow Six Siege has deviated from its normal release schedule to drop a sizeable 14GB+ maintenance patch across all platforms. And surprise! It contains the brand new season, Operation Shadow Legacy.
Dubbed the game’s “biggest, most meta-game changing season” yet, Shadow Legacy has been sitting on the test server for over four weeks with no sign of budging. And yet, here we are. With an official announcement still in the wind, the new season is now completely playable with all the nifty new perks it brings, including the introduction of Splinter Cell’s Sam Fisher as ‘Zero’, the Chalet rework, new scopes, and several other tweaks and fixes.
The developers are likely refraining from talking about the new season until Ubisoft Forward later today, but it is an odd way of framing things when there has already been plenty of criticism about the lack of communication from the company. Professional players are particularly irritated by this as it prevents them from planning scrims and preparing for the impending return of regional leagues later this month.
Diving into the patch notes, we already knew what to expect. Sure enough, Ping 2.0 makes an appearance without many changes. Players will be able to freely ping on drones much in the same way that they can in person, highlighting equipment and gadgets along the way. Ubisoft recognises concerns that this could potentially cause balancing issues in high-tier play, but is still figuring out how to address it.
The other big addition is the overhaul of scopes, ushering in a variety of new 1.5x, 2.0x, and 2.5x optics (the ACOG was previously billed as a 2.5x but was, in fact 3.0x and has been renamed as such). Unfortunately, Ubisoft has been unable to resolve the disparity between 1.0x scopes, citing that design issues currently prevent every operator having access to all kinds.
Aside from that, players can check out the new bomb chassis, anti-boosting and anti-cheat changes, and numerous fixes to bugs, level design, and operators.
Will Zero seamlessly fit into the roster and make his way onto our list of best Rainbow Six Siege operators or will we have another Lion fiasco on our hands? I guess we’re about to find out.