Ubisoft has unveiled its plans for the seventh year of Rainbow Six Seige and it’s looking to be its most ambitious roadmap of content yet. At a recent press event, PowerUp! was able to go hands-on with some of the content launching as part of Season 1 of Year 7, titled Demon Veil. Despite having little base knowledge of Rainbow Six Seige, I was left impressed and intrigued about the future of the game.
A brand new operator, a whole new game mode, the first new map in years and a whole host of quality of life improvements are on their way to Rainbow Six Seige over the next year so let’s break down what we saw.
Rainbow Six Seige Demon Veil
The latest addition to the roster of operatives is defender Azami, a Japanese woman whose skillset specialises in creating makeshift barriers around the map. When a match begins she is equipped with several Kiba Barriers, kunai that can be lodged into walls and so on before splitting open to create a decently sized circle barrier – perfect for plugging holes and making cover on the go. These barriers are bulletproof but can still be hard-breached so balancing feels considered, especially given that Ubisoft tells us they’ve been perfecting Azami’s mechanics for the better part of a year.
I was able to play a handful of matches both against and as Azami and the adaptability of the character provided a fun, constantly evolving challenge. Though the Kiba Barriers aren’t indestructible, they still slowed us down and obscured lines of sight nicely. On top of that, Azami is a well-balanced operative, both nimble and sturdy enough to get around the map in a heartbeat without sacrificing too much muscle.
She also just looks rad – we were told the developers did extensive research into Japanese private security for her aesthetic and worked closely with Japanese teams to ensure an authentic design was crafted.
Elsewhere players can look forward to a new map after a three-year wait. Looking at a roughly mid-season drop, Emerald Plains gave the devs a chance to flex some creative muscle and construct a map that, to them, felt both as a part of the Rainbow Six Seige pantheon but also fresh and exciting. While we weren’t able to dive into the map last week we did get a bit of a tour of the Irish castle that has been transformed into a very chic country club.
Major Hitman level vibes from this one. From what we saw the game’s signature verticality looks to be in tack here too which is comforting.
Another change coming with Demon Veil is the ability for players to re-pick attack operators during the preparation phase of a match. This allows for major adaptability on the attackers part, using information gathered from drones to better change their approach to defences. Other changes to look forward to are Goyo getting a reworked special ability, console players being able to finally replay matches and universal weapon sights.
Demon Veil will also introduce a long-requested game mode, Death Match to Rainbow Six Seige. Touted as a means for players to warm up and get the blood pumping before jumping into matches, deathmatch has loads of potential for good old-fashioned fun.
Looking ahead to Rainbow Six Siege‘s content Roadmap we can see some pretty significant changes on the horizon too. Alongside new operators and maps is a commitment from the devs to make the game better at onboarding new players and implementing protections for those that are already part of the community.
Looking at the map it’s easy to see why the devs have called this their most ambitious plan yet for the game and the sense of duty they have to their community feels very authentic when they discuss ways to improve the play space. Time will tell how all this shakes out in the wash but for now, the future of Rainbow Six Seige is looking mighty fine.
Demon Veil is live now on the Rainbow Six Seige Test Server.
