Rainbow Six Siege is getting a major mid-season patch on December 15, and Ubisoft released the patch notes earlier today. It's a big one, as it introduces the Bartlett University map, formerly a Terrorist Hunt-only map, to PvP with some fairly significant tweaks. In other words, that annoying yellow gas is gone, and some structural adjustments have been made to make it better for PvP.
Meanwhile, Tachanka is getting a lot of attention. The studio has noticed that, although he's among the most loved operators by the hardcore, his pick rate is very low. To fix this, they've added a shield to the front of his turret, meaning you won't be able to headshot him as easily anymore. Still, it means Tachanka will need to be careful about the angles he positions his turret in, as the shield is only frontal.
Those are the big changes – everything else is balancing. Some examples include Fuze getting another cluster charge, Smoke's gas canisters now behave more like grenades, and Blackbeard's "killing efficiency" is being balanced. The full patch notes are over here, as well as a long list of new bugs that have been fixed.
Now's a good time to get into the game: Ubisoft has just announced a second season, which means eight new operators and four new maps will roll out during 2017. Steven wrote a primer for newcomers yesterday, and it's well worth checking out.
