Rainbow Six Siege Year 8 Season 1 "addresses mouse and keyboard on consoles" and voice chat toxicity
Rainbow Six Shhh.
Ubisoft has peeled back the lid on Rainbow Six siege's Year 8 Season 1, Operation Commanding Force, which introduces new features, a new Operator, and "further anti-toxicity measures".
The new season also ushers in the game's all-new Mousetrap feature, which means players jumping onto console when using a mouse and keyboard will "activate a penalty that adds lag to their inputs".
"The goal of this penalty is to encourage fair gameplay by removing the unfair advantage that mouse and keyboard players have on consoles," Ubisoft explains. "While active, continued use of mouse and keyboard gradually increases the lag over several matches, making it harder to aim and shoot. Completing matches with a controller will gradually reduce the lag back to normal."
New Operator Brava is described as an "invaluable new Attacker equipped with the Kludge Drone gadget". This drone disrupts hostile surveillance and provides counter tactics, like repurposing the technology for her squad, and carries a PARA-308 or a CAMRS as a primary weapon and a USP40 or a Super Shorty as a secondary weapon.
Commanding Force also brings a balancing update to Zero, "improvements to the Play Section UI, balancing change on weapon attachments, and a new immersive reload system: interrupting the animation will leave the player without a magazine, but closed bolt weapons will have a single round for the player to use at any point during the reload". There are also new onboarding features, too, including Beginner Challenges and Specialty Challenges, with the former identifying an Operator's playstyle in-game. The latter is also there to help new players learn the "various Operator specialities".
As for those anti-toxicity measures?
"Further anti-toxicity measures include a new Reputation Penalty for abusive voice chat," Ubisoft explains. "While active, this penalty mutes repeat offenders by default to prevent hateful and disruptive content in voice chat. Muted players can still use voice chat but will only be heard by players who unmute them."
From tomorrow (20th February) until 20th March, players can purchase the limited-time Year 8 pass which unlocks four seasonal Battle Passes, 14-days early access to new Operators, "exclusive" Exotic skins, and 10 per cent off items in the shop. Pick up the Premium Year Pass, however, and you'll get all of the above as well as 20 extra "Battle tokens that players can use to unlock rewards faster".
The Season 1 Battle Pass also introduces the Bravo Pack Ticket, "a rare item that lets you pick an exclusive reward from the latest Bravo Collection" once you hit level 100 in this season’s Battle Pass.
Rainbow Six Siege is out now on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, and last-gen consoles.
Rainbow Six Siege hackers recently exploited the ban feed - which alerts players when someone has committed a bannable offence - to display images on other players' screens.
The images being displayed by hackers range from the light-hearted to very much not-safe-for-work. The latter was particularly problematic for streamers because showing such content can result in a channel ban.