Everything you need to know about Siege Year 8 Season 1 (Preview)

By Cassie Peterson

Posted on February 19, 2023

Welcome back, operators! It’s time to give you the rundown of what’s coming up in Rainbow Six Siege as we approach the game’s 8th competitive year. This next season will feature some important gameplay and quality-of-life updates, including new anti-toxicity measures and Mousetrap, which addresses players using mouse and keyboard on console. And, of course, we’ve got a brand new operator to take a look at. Let’s start there.

Year 8 Season 1, Operation Commanding Force, introduces players to Brava, a new Brazilian operator who can secure crucial intelligence as well as take control of enemy resources nearby. With her Kludge Drone gadget, Brava is able to commandeer defender gadgets. You can slow enemies with Melusi’s Banshee device or take over Echo’s Yokai drones to keep an eye on the defuser from a safe distance. In one of the matches I played, I was able to take over Kapkan’s Entry Denial Device, which was then promptly walked through by Echo. It appears that capturing gadgets like Bandit’s shockwire and Kaid’s Rtila will also destroy them.

I’m sure you can already think of a few defending operators to counter the Kludge drone, most notably being Mozzie and his Pest device. Pests can do a complete role reversal on the Kludge drone, allowing Mozzie to take control of attacker devices like claymores and Nomad’s Airjab. Mute’s jammers can also stop the Kludge drone in its tracks and the Kludge drone will also be destroyed if it comes into contact with any shock effects from Kaid or Bandit. Solis can also detect when the Kludge drone is approaching when using her gadget, giving you and your team time to react and counter the device. Lastly, Vigil remains hidden from the Kludge drone when he is cloaked so he can launch a surprise attack of his own.

To counter those counters, attackers should make sure to have a Twitch or Thatcher handy, or at least some impact EMP grenades. Brava also pairs up well with reconnaissance operators like IQ who can point out defender gadgets for the Kludge drone to hijack.

Obviously this operator will be spending a lot of time on a drone and, therefore, not moving around a whole lot. For this, the devs have made Brava a 3-speed, 1-armor operator so she can move around quickly. She’s also equipped with claymores to defend herself while she’s on drones, or you can equip smoke grenades to provide cover while moving. As far as weaponry is concerned, you’ll have the CAMRS designated marksman rifle or the PARA-308 as your primary options while the Super Shorty shotgun and USP40 will serve as your secondary options.

Another operator, Zero, is also getting a little balancing update. Originally when using Zero’s ARGUS camera, you would only be able to see from one side of the surface it had been attached to. Now ARGUS can pierce through the surface to see on the other side, including on reinforced walls and hatches, and you’ll be able to switch back and forth between sides to see areas on each side. The pierce action is only able to be done by players operating as Zero. This will help tremendously when attackers are trying to protect the defuser, as they’ll be able to monitor multiple rooms with a single camera.

That’s enough about Brava and Zero, it’s time now to shift focus to some gameplay and quality of life updates coming to Siege in Y8S1. First off, the Play section UI is being updated to consolidate different match types: Competitive will house the Ranked and Unranked playlists while Quick Play covers the Quick Match, Deathmatch, and Event playlists. There’s also a separate section for Training where you can visit the Shooting Range or the Training Grounds, or learn the basics of Siege in Situations.

Speaking of learning the basics, players new to Siege will have a new tool to help them unlock more operators by completing challenges. Completing “onboarding” challenges to learn operator specialties will reward players with bonus Renown, Battle Pass boosters, and Renown boosters, as well as let the player unlock the corresponding operator after completing all challenges. This will be a great way to introduce the game to any friends of yours interested in checking out Siege but who were weary of the steep learning curve.

There’s also going to be some updates to weapon attachments and behaviors, most notably a new immersive reloading system. Under the current reload system, you’re able to cancel a reload at any time and shoot any remaining bullets at a rushing attacker. Under the new system, interrupting the reload animation will leave you without a magazine — you watched it drop from the weapon, it’s gone now. However, closed bolt weapons will still have a single round available, so you better have really good aim. You don’t, however, lose those rounds that were still in the magazine. I’m a bit surprised at this, while at the same time relieved. I’m sure I’m not the only one guilty of starting to reload an LMG while there’s still 50 rounds left. It’s nice to know that those rounds will basically be restocked in the next magazine, although I wonder if they will change that in the future.

The developers are continuing to deploy their own tactics to enhance the overall player experience, especially to combat toxicity and those who spoof for an unfair advantage. During this current season (Y7S4), we saw the introduction of the Reputation Penalty system for those who like to engage in disruptive behavior, such as team killing. This season the penalty system will go into full effect, enacting punishments against those players who decide not to correct their behavior. On top of that, a new anti-toxicity measure is being put into place for voice chat as well. If it has been determined that a player has been abusing their voice chat privileges with disrespectful and hateful speech, the individual will become muted by default and will only be able to be heard by players who manually unmute them.

On consoles, the team have been hard at work developing a new anti-spoofing feature, called Mousetrap (how clever), to track players using mouse and keyboard, gaining an unfair advantage over controller users on Xbox and PlayStation. Mouse and keyboard was never an approved input method for consoles, so now they’re cracking down on those who’ve managed to find a way to use them by gradually increasing input lag every match for continued usage of prohibited hardware. If players want that lag to go away, they have to switch back to a controller and keep using it for multiple matches. This is a very amusing penalty to me as I can just imagine these spoofers getting more and more frustrated. Maybe don’t cheat at video games and then you wouldn’t be having that problem. If mouse and keyboard is prohibited on consoles, then don’t use it. It’s that simple.

Operation Commanding Force takes off on March 7th. Starting tomorrow, February 20th, and going through March 20th, players can purchase a Year 8 Pass for a limited time. This pass will unlock all four of the year’s Battle Passes as well as 2-week early access to new operators when they drop, exclusive skins, 10% shop discount, and more. Speaking of the Battle Pass, thankfully they are actively working on updating the Battle Pass UI. Right now, trying to navigate the Battle Pass is like pulling teeth, I almost wish they’d just go back to the linear style. Being introduced to the Battle Pass in Season 1 is the Bravo Pack Ticket. Bravo Packs are mystery packs you can get in-game that don’t contain any duplicate items. A Bravo Pack will let you select a specific item from the lineup (I’m eyeballing the mop-head Nøkk). You can acquire these by reaching level 100 in the Battle Pass.

That is your briefing on what you need to know going into Year 8 Season 1 of Siege. For more Siege coverage as well as reviews, news, and more, stick around GamingTrend.com and check us out on YouTube at Gaming Trend Videos! See you at the range!

Everything you need to know about Siege Year 8 Season 1 (Preview)

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