As the Rainbow Six Siege Pro League Finals wrap up, details on the next season of content have been revealed. Shifting Tides will bring two new operators and a rework of the Theme Park map. A host of quality of life changes are also coming. Here’s what you need to know.
On attack
Kali is Siege‘s latest attacker, rocking a 2 speed/2 armor, and the first DLC sniper. She is equipped with a bolt action sniper rifle that packs a ton of utility. First of all, the CSRX 300 rifle can punch right through unreinforced walls and hatches like they were paper. It can penetrate multiple walls at once or even multiple enemies if the opportunity presents itself. The CSRX 300 is also decked out with a variable 5x/12x scope. This will let you adapt your strategy on the fly, which is essential for most attacks. Any foe shot in the head will instantly be killed. A torso shot will result in an instant down.
Kali’s rifle also features an under-barrel launcher equipped with her signature gadget: three rounds of the LV Explosive Lance. This bad mamajama burrows into both reinforced and unreinforced walls. Once lodged, it will trigger an explosive blast on both sides of the wall, destroying any gadgets, Castle barricades, or deployable shields around. The gadget and gun combo place her solidly as an alternative to Glaz, Ash, Zofia, and Thatcher.
Kit and counter
The C75 submachine gun or the P226 MK-24 make up the rest of her kit. For utility, Kali can bring either breaching charges or every sniper’s best friend: the humble claymore.
Kali might seem extremely strong, but there are a few drawbacks to her kit. First of all, the rate of fire on her bolt action rifle is very slow. You’ll need to be sure you have your target before you take the shot. Secondly, when a defender is downed by Kali’s rifle, they get spun around to face where she fired from. Bullets fired from the CSRX 300 also leave a significant smoke trail. The gun is loud as hell, too. All of this should help the defenders pin down Kali’s location if she isn’t careful. She also only has about 2 dozen or so shots to take, so make sure they find their mark.
On defense
Also weighing in with a 2 speed/2 armor is Siege‘s latest defender, Wamai. He is designed as an alternative for the heavily picked Jager. His gadget is the Mag-Net System, a throwable sticky emplacement that will pull any attacker grenades and non-bullet projectiles in towards itself. Any projectiles’ detonation timer is reset when caught. Instead of blowing up where the attackers planned, throwables will go off inside the Mag-Net, destroying both. Wamai gets his Mag-Nets on a timer, similar to how Legion works. This should help players pace out their gadget use and keep him strong in late round gameplay.
It’s important to note that the effects of whatever is caught are not changed. This means that a cleverly placed Mag-Net could pull a frag grenade right back to the person who threw it. The Mag-Net will work on every projectile except Hibana’s X-Kairos pellets and Twitch’s shock charges.
Wamai also is one of the only defenders to get a bonafide assault rifle as part of his kit. The AUG-A2 will likely be the go-to pick for his main weapon. If you’re an SMG purist, he also has the MP5K as an alternative. As for sidearms, he will have the option of the P12 or the Rhino D-40 revolver.
Wamai’s counter is pretty simple. Just shoot the Mag-Nets to neutralize them.
Changing the Theme
The map rework coming with Shifting Tides is focused on Theme Park. Once a haunted house, Theme Park is getting changed into a Chinese Palace. It is also being significantly reduced in overall size. This was done by wholesale removing the trains section from the center of the map. The entire map is much brighter now and should no longer seem too easy for defenders to skulk around in. With the change, most of the landmarks have been renamed, but they should be fairly familiar to park veterans. The new bombsites are 1F Lab/Storage, 1F Armory/Throne Room, 2F Daycare/Bunk, and 2F Office/Initiation.
Huge changes
While new operators and a fresh map are usually the eye grabbers for a new season like Shifting Tides, Ubisoft managed to sneak in some really critical changes.
First off, a headshot is a headshot again. This requires a little explaining of how Siege animations work. In Siege, a headshot is a guaranteed one-hit kill no matter the distance at which it hits. However, if a player is stunned, their character raises one of their hands to shield their eyes. Up until Shifting Tides, if a bullet were to hit the hand that is in front of the head, it would count as a limb shot. This new season will finally allow the bullet to carry through a squishy human hand and into the brainpan where it belongs. It’s one less thing people can complain about when they lose a shootout.
Second, is a change to how rappeling works. Originally, exiting a rappel was a context-sensitive action. Reach the end of a wall, either the ground or a ceiling, and you exit the rappel animation. This is being changed to a button press to confirm you want to exit the animation. It sounds like a small change, but lining up the perfect shot only to be forced into a lengthy mantling animation because you moved 1mm to close to the edge is really frustrating. This gives one more layer of fine control to the player and really only leaves you to blame if you die on the wall.
Small changes
This last stuff still falls into the quality of life changes in the previous section, but fewer players will be jumping for joy for these adjustments. First, Casual is being renamed to Quick Play to better reflect the nature of the mode. On top of this, the player guide is being expanded to cover all modes. This should help new players with onboarding into Siege‘s complex gameplay. Last up, Capitao is finally getting an Elite skin.
That’s all that has been announced so far. If you want to get in on these changes as soon as possible, Shifting Tides will come to the Test Server on November 11. The full release should come about three weeks later, in early December. The new operators will be available day 1 for season pass owners and one week later for everyone else. No details have been revealed as of yet for the forthcoming battle pass. You can check out the full patch notes here.
