Rainbow Six Siege starts a new year with a vision for some revolutionary changes in Year 6, some of which could split up the R6 community into a group of supporters of the new changes and a group of their opposite. But, before we start talking about the future of Rainbow Six Siege, let's take a look at Operation Crimson Heist and see what Ubisoft brings with this new season.

Rainbow Six Siege Operation Crimson Heist

Flores:

As revealed previously, the new operation will bring Flores as a new Attacker to the game. His primary gadget, which is his main ability as well, is a remote-controlled explosive drone named RCE Ratero 110. Flores uses the drone as a controllable moving grenade that can be triggered at any given time below 10 seconds. If you trigger the explosion - or the timer reaches the end - the drone becomes bullet-proof and explodes after three seconds.

Overall, Flores' gadget is a combination of a soft-breach, a grenade, and a drone. You can simply use the gadget to get intel on the opponent players, and you have four RCE Ratero drones along with your two basic drones which make Flores a very crucial operator when it comes to gathering intel. Moreover, the drone is like a sticky C4 that can stick itself to any surface. It simply means the RCE Ratero can destroy soft-breach walls, shields, hatches, defender gadgets, and operators themselves. When an operator spots the RCE Ratero, he can only destroy it before the explosive trigger activates. The drone is vulnerable to Aruni's lasers, Mute's jammers, and electrified objects.

During my experience with Flores, I found him a nice replacement to Thatcher for destroying Bandit's batteries or Kaid's electricity, though Mute's jammers still win the battle against RCE Ratero unless you are precise enough to detonate the explosion right behind the jammer's supported area. Flores is also a great operator when it comes to facing the campers. You can trigger the explosion near a camper and make him leave the area.

As a two-speed two-armor operator, Flores is a powerful pick for those who tend to stay away from combat and support their teammates from afar. That said, with AR33 and SR-25 as primary weapons, Flores is a challenging opponent when it comes to combat. The operator has a single GSH-18 as his secondary weapon and a Stun Grenade or Claymore as a secondary gadget. Maybe a reduction in the operator's number of RCE drones makes him a more balanced character in the game. Below, you can check out all details of the operator in a nutshell:

• Primary Weapons: AR33 | SR-25
• Secondary Weapon: GSH-18
• Secondary Gadgets: Stun Grenade | Claymore
• Main Gadget: RCE Ratero 101 (4x)
• Difficulty: 2
• Speed: 2
• Armor: 2

Gonne-6:

This season, Ubisoft welcomes a brand new secondary weapon to the game which has only a single bullet, say hello to Gonne-6. The weapon has been designed for destroying bullet-proof gadgets of the defenders such as Deployable Shields, Evil Eye, and Bullet-proof Cameras. Gonne-6 has not been designed for killing or breaching so use its only bullet wisely.

Border Rework:

Keeping up the good work in improving the existing maps of the game, this time around it's Border's turn to get a rework. Regarding its high number of entry points, Border has always been a hard-to-defend map in Rainbow Six Siege, but the new rework removes some of the entry points and provides a better situation for the defending team to secure their position strongly.

The bathroom has now been extended to the outer side which blocks the attacking team's access to the soft-breach walls of the bomb site next to the bathroom. The second floor also has one new balcony inside the building which connects the Eastern Stairs to the Break Room. The Archive's Room has also been extended a little bit into the office. The images above will help you understand the upcoming changes to the map.

Streamer Mode:

Rainbow Six Siege finally gets a Streamer Mode which will hopefully reduce the possibility of Stream Sniping and Queue Sniping in the game while increasing the streamer's anonymity. Not much has been shared about the mode yet, but the developers will roll it out sometime in the middle of the Rainbow Six Siege Operation Crimson Heist.

Match Replay:

Ubisoft is bringing in a new Match Replay system which will allow you to have better control over the replay. You can now adjust the timeline and rounds of the replay, which makes it much more user-friendly than before. It will be available soon after the launch of the new season.

Newcomer Playlist Maps:

The Newcomer mode will welcome Kafe Dostoyevsky, Coastline, Club House, Oregon, and Border as new maps. On the other hand, Chalet and Consulate will be removed from the mode's map list.

Drone Proximity Awareness:

Attacker drones will now detect the presence of Mozzie's PEST drones a little bit sooner than before. This will allow the attackers to have a higher chance of saving themselves.

Operator Price Drops:

With the arrival of the Year 6 Season 1, some of the operators will see a drop in price. You will be able to acquire Finka/Lion for 10,000 Renowns, Mozzie/Gridlock for 15,000 Renowns, and Iana/Oryx for 20,000 Renowns.

Rainbow Six Siege Brand New Logo:

As soon as the Rainbow Six Siege Operation Crimson Heist goes live, you will identify the game with its brand new logo and background. For me, the previous logo was much lovelier, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter so much.

It's good to see that Ubisoft keeps up the balance of bringing new content while reworking existing features of the game. Content-wise, Rainbow Six Siege Operation Crimson Heist may seem a little bit heavier than the last season, and that's because of the company's vision for some significant changes in the future. We have explained all Ubisoft's plans for the future of Rainbow Six Siege in another post, so make sure to read it if you are a regular player of the game.

Rainbow Six Siege is now available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox Game Pass, and PC.