Rainbow Six Siege Y7S4 Operation Solar Raid was officially announced last night. Coming as the biggest Rainbow Six Siege season ever yet, Solar Raid will add Solis as a new defender, bring a new Battle Pass system, apply some balance changes and quality-of-life improvements, and deliver a new map as well as a revamped Ranked mode.
New Operator: Solis
The new operator Soils is a 2-Health 2-Speed defender that will be a great intel collector for the team. Her prime ability allows the player to identify any opponent gadgets such as drones, breach charges, claymores, and any other thing that is literally a gadget and sends out signals, even the Defuser. While Solis can see them through her gadget, she can also ping everything she sees for her teammates using the ability.
That being said, the ability does have a cooldown, and once you ping things, it gets off until the cooldown is finished. Also, when you are using the ability of Solis, you won't have access to your gun, which makes the operator vulnerable during the process of gathering intel. What makes Solis powerful, is the fact that it can see gadgets before they are fully activated. Imagine that a Thermite is placing one of its breach charges on a reinforced wall. Solis can see the gadget as soon as it touches the wall even before Thermite can activate it to start cutting through the metal.
The ability of Solis shuts down if she is affected by an EMP Grenade. Also, she can be spotted by IQ's electronic screen when using her ability. Solis will be equipped with a P90 and ITA 12L as her primary weapons. SMG-11 will be her only secondary weapon. In the case of secondary gadgets, she can either grab an Impact Grenade or a Bulletproof Camera.
New Map: Nighthaven Lab
Nighthaven Lab is the new map coming to all modes in the game as soon as Operation Solar Rain launches. The new map features 2 floors as well as a basement. The basement and the second floor each will contain one bomb site, while the first floor will have two bomb sites, much similar to Kafe Dostoyevsky.
The new map does seem to feature compact areas in the basement and the second floor, but there are enough entry points to surprise the defenders. The map also features a cargo area much similar to the garage in Clubhouse.
In a surprising move, Rainbow Six Siege will not allow players to ban Nighthaven Lab during the Map Ban Phase in Ranked and Unranked modes, in an attempt to force players to get adapted to the new map rather than banning it all the time.
Ranked 2.0
The Ranked mode will not feature two different measures instead of the current MMR metric. Skill and Rank Points will be new metrics. While Skill will remain hidden from players and Ubisoft use that to do the matchmaking calculations for creating a fair match, the Rank Points will show your progress through the season.
As of next season, all players will begin Ranked mode from Copper V. This means the Placing matches will be removed. As you win games, you will earn Rank Points which will allow you to progress through the game and reach higher ranks. In each new division you will receive a new reward, be it an Alpha Pack or a charm, or other cosmetics.
Ubisoft will also remove the previous MMR metric that would only allow players within a certain MMR range to become a squad and play together. The developer says they will instead try to balance the matchmaking, but no further details were shared about it.
Balance Changes
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ADS Speed:
- All Operators, no matter what their speed is, will now have the same pace and speed when walking in the ADS mode. This speed equals to the speed of a 1-speed operator during ADS.
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Sens:
- They will become a 1-Health 3-Speed operator.
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Osa:
- They will become a 3-Health 1-Speed operator.
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Dokkaebi:
- She will become a 1-Health 3-Speed operator.
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Droning:
- Drones will no longer see a speed reduction when moving to sides (consoles)
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Friendly Fire:
- During the Preparation Phase, Friendly Fire will be disabled for Defenders.
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Bomb Site:
- Attackers will not lose Bomb Site markers if they lose the Defuser. The drop point of Defuser will be marked for them.
Other Improvements, Changes, and Additions
The Reputation system will enter a new phase with the beginning of Solar Raid, as players will now be able to see their Reputation rank based on how toxic they are. From Year 8, players will receive punishments or rewards based on their Reputation rank.
Crossplay and Cross-progression will be fully implemented with the arrival of Solar Raid. PlayStation and Xbox players will now be able to team up or play against each other. On the other hand, PC players will be able to play with Amazon Luna players. Also, cross-progression will sum up all your belongings in different platforms and will make it accessible through all platforms you play the game on. This includes Operators, cosmetics, Renown, and R6 Credits.
A new Battle Pass progression system will be introduced next season, where players get to choose the path of rewards they want to unlock first. This looks more like the current Battle Pass system in Warzone 2.0.
Last but not least, Ubisoft revealed the Iana Elite set which is based on the protagonist 2B from Nier: Automata. It is already available in the game.
Release Schedule
Operation Solar Raid is now live on Test Servers and you can experience all the new changes and send feedback to developers. The new season is set to be launched on Live Servers on December 6, 2022.