Year 2 of Rainbow Six: Siege has officially arrived.
As of 11:00am EST this morning, the newest update for Ubisoft’s tactical shooter is now playable, bringing a slew of new features and cosmetics, as well as a host of tweaks and bug fixes.
This update, titled “Velvet Shell”, marks the beginning of Season 1 for Rainbow Six Siege‘s second year of content, and follows a similar format to the previous 4 seasons of content released in the game’s first year: 2 new operators from a new global Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU), a new playable map located in the same country as the new CTU, new cosmetics such as weapon skins and operator outfits, and small bug fixes and balance changes.
The new operators in Velvet Shell come from Spain’s own Special Operations Group, the G.E.O., and bring some interesting toys to the battlefield.
The new G.E.O. attacker, Jackal, is medium-armored operator who carries some seriously big guns. He is equipped with the “Eyenox Model III”, a special tactical visor that allows him to see the footprints of defenders and deduce where they’ve been, and where they might currently be. He also has a secondary ability in which he can choose a single footprint to scan, which then sends exact location information on the specific defender to Jackal’s entire team for a limited amount of time, allowing them to close in on their prey in a coordinated fashion.
The new G.E.O. defender, Mira, brings her own new tech, and is also the first female operator in the game to be heavily-armored. She carries the Vector SMG as a primary firearm, to the delight of players who have come to love the weapons in other Ubisoft titles such as The Division and Far Cry 4. Her unique gadget is the “Black Mirror”, a bulletproof one-way mirror that she can first put on a reinforced wall to safely spy on attackers, then later remove to unleash a hail of bullet fire from a now conveniently-placed murder hole.
The new map, Coastline, drops the new operators into a beautiful beachfront location in Ibiza, Spain. In this new tactical setting, players will have to navigate fancy club rooms and old Spanish ruins, hunting each other under colorful neon lights in a chaotic paradise-turned-battleground.
The Velvet Shell update also brings a number of new bug fixes and improvements, foremost of which is the complete overhaul of the game’s main menu screen and UI navigation. Players can now find all their ongoing challenges, operator customization, and game news in one convenient location, as well as enjoy a personalized “play” button that lets players get into matches even quicker.
Complete patch notes for the new Velvet Shell Update can be found here.