December 1st will mark the 10 year anniversary of the hero-based competitive 5v5 breach-n-shoot Rainbow Six Siege X, and the day after it the game will receive its last season for 2025. The new season doesn’t include lot of brand-new content aside from a new weapon, but aside from that there’s still plenty of revamps on the way. Yesterday, Ubisoft published a reveal video featuring some of the development heads of the game going over the details of the new season as well as providing some insight into their thought-process behind the changes they’re making.
When Operation Tenfold Pursuit (Y10S4) drops this December, players can expect to see a “remaster” of Thatcher, balancing changes to hard-breacher operators, “modernization” of the Skyscraper and Theme Park maps, and a complete rework of the Fortress map, which will squeeze into the Ranked map rotation. First on the docket of changes; R6 veterans beware, as Thatcher’s EMP grenade ability–a staple of Attacker-side strategy–is gone, and replaced by a shiny new gadget that can detect and disable Defender electronics through walls.
Thermite, Hibana, and Maverick will all receive buffs, with Thermite getting an extra charge of his gadget, Hibana’s pellet launcher deploying and cutting through reinforced walls faster, and Maverick’s torch no longer having a cool-down time. Additionally, Thermite is getting a shotgun sidearm, and Maverick is getting a full-auto pistol sidearm. On that note, the new weapon, a DMR (pictured below), will be added to the arsenal of not only Thatcher–making him one of the only operators with four primary weapon options–but also Hibana, Nøkk, and Capitão. Ace, on the other hand, is getting nerfed, presumably because “…he’s been carrying the ‘hard breaching team’ for some time now,” as quoted by Game Director Joshua Mills in the Reveal Panel video. This means Ace isn’t going to have the same rapid rotation capability as he once did, because he’s now a one speed, three armor operator.
On the Defender side, Mute’s Jammer gadget gets both better and worse, as its effective range has been increased, but it cannot disrupt the same amount of gadgets as it used to. Great news for Castle mains, and the rest of the Defending team, as his barricades can now be electrified. This opens up a whole new set of entry-denial plays, which is a boon for Defenders when the site they’re playing on has one too many angles to worry about covering. Apparently, this buff comes as a result of the R6 team recognizing that the balancing changes they made to the weapon scopes of some of the Defending Operators made them not strong enough to justify on a team’s roster. This is detailed again by Mills, who adds:
…That simply won’t do. So, we are looking into new ways and listening to your feedback on how to improve these Operators so that they can have more of an impact without using scopes.
Beyond this, there are a few more quality of life improvements being implemented this upcoming season. Cheating, which according to the devs is an important community concern, is being addressed with the updating of the games’ anti-cheat system, Shield Guard. Also, revisions have been made to the Ranked matchmaking system, which looks to now better match players together with not only similar rank but also similar play-time in the season. Lastly, PvE-based modes are being updated to allow players to hone their skills without the time-limit and tension of PvP, and full-on Bot matches will also be available for the first time, which look to provide a great approximation of an actual match for newer players. There’s more to come in terms of anniversary celebrations and player-testable experimental features after the release of Operation Tenfold Pursuit, but until then Rainbow Six Siege X looks like it will round off its 10th year rather nicely. For more information on this, take a look at the season’s official webpage.