It’s starting to look like a new kind of breaching operator could soon be coming to Rainbow Six Siege. During a preview event for the new Operation Para Bellum season, director of marketing Alex Remy was cryptic about the details, but hinted that breaching was an area that the design team is working on.
“In terms of breachers, that is one of the holes in the attackers that we feel is missing an extra option or two,” Remy said. With a smile, he suggested that the team is working on a new op that has “great abilities in breaching.” When asked if he was referring to a soft breacher like Sledge and Buck or a hard breacher like Thermite, he wouldn’t say. A new breacher would be a welcome addition in the eyes of many players, especially a hard breacher. Breaching reinforced walls is a big part of the game that currently only two operators are capable of, so expanding that role to more ops would help attackers feel like they weren't 'stuck' picking Thermite or Hibana.
Remy also took some time to reflect on Operation Chimera, the Outbreak co-op event, and the controversial paid-only Outbreak packs. He said that the season went “extremely well” and had a lot of fun with the Outbreak event, but there were some things he didn’t love about it. “We diverged a little bit from what the core of the game is. After Outbreak was wrapped up and finished, that whole season was a bit dry. Not as exciting as the other ones. No multiplayer map left, no legacy.” This is why Remy is excited for Para Bellum, which returns to form with a new map and stuff that affects the meta as a whole like the bulletproof camera, operator speed tweaks, a UI overhaul, pick-and-ban system for the Pro League, and more.
The Outbreak event also marked the first time that Siege introduced paid-only alpha packs. During the event, players could buy the packs in bundles to unlock up to 50 new cosmetic items with no chance of a duplicate. This type of paid-only pack is something that Ubisoft will “absolutely” try again in the future, according to Remy. “There’s no reason for us to stop with the collection. It was a tremendous success.” Remy understands why some players would take issue with the paid-only nature of the packs, but said the items are “absolutely optional” during only a set period of the game. “[With the packs] being optional and something that does not alter gameplay whatsoever and doesn’t segregate players, I feel pretty confident with the overall feel of the game.”
Remy also delved into hit detection, an issue that has long annoyed players. “Ever since Operation Health a year ago, hit detection, latency, ping, etc. has been reworked and improved by a huge huge margin, but we still have an issue with recoil.” Remy is referring to the misalignment issue with aiming, where the horizontal sway of a gun’s recoil can result in bullets not going exactly where you’re aiming. Ubisoft has been hard at work at a new recoil system that has already seen several iterations on the Technical Test server. For the developers, this misalignment issue needs to be solved before hit detection can be accurately measured.
“I do believe that [when the new recoil releases], it should remove almost all issues with hit detection. And if not, we know that the recoil is not the cause, and it can only be something wrong with the network.” Remy said that a year ago, hit detection was a big concern, but believes that they’re mostly “out of the woods,” though they’re keeping an eye on it.
Today, Ubisoft fully revealed Operation Para Bellum and its new operators Alibi and Maestro. We went hands-on with the new ops and new map and came away excited and intrigued.
