Vertical Play Is More Viable That Ever in Rainbow Six Siege’s Operation Heavy Mettle Season
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Ubisoft has revealed the next season coming to Rainbow Six Siege as information on Operation Heavy Mettle has been revealed and it’s set to launch on August 29, 2023.
The big highlight is the new Korean Operator Ram, an Attacker that brings a unique gadget that makes vertical play a bit more menacing for the defender side.
New Attack Operator - Ram
Ram comes with the gadget BU-GI, a tank-like tool that when activated destroys all soft floors it runs through as well as any defender gadgets blocking its way. We are talking about shields, barbed wires and barricaded doors giving Attacks clear passage or a good line of sight to the room below.
Ram can be equipped with either an R4C or an LMG-E as a primary and a MK1 or an ITA12S shotty as secondary weapon. She can then bring stun grenades or hard breaches.
Hopefully, she shakes up the meta a bit as this 1 speed, 3 health Operator seems equipped to really put a lot of pressure on the defender’s highly fortified sides or from above. The most unique thing about her is that her gadget is actually pretty loud, which is a positive and negative at the same time. When her gadget is activated, the noise could be a good mask to support other operators doing their roles, such as hard breaches breaching fortified walls or masking Fuze planting his gadgets. On the other hand, you clearly know where Ram because of her gadget, so she’s highly prone to being flanked.
Commendation System that comes with rewards
Ubisoft’s continued efforts in combating toxicity in the Siege community is the inclusion of a Commendation system that hopefully encourages proper play and etiquette while punishing those with toxic behaviors. This system will be monitored to ensure it will be fair for everyone. In short, highly commended players will receive rewards while those that behave poorly. In the future, the developers aim to marry the Commendation system to the reputation system in place to further reinforce positive gameplay.
Game modes
During Operation Heavy Mettle, Ubisoft will be implementing a rework on the game’s Quick Play game mode, making it much faster with reduced round timers and even bomb sites already set up with reinforcements. Attackers will also receive a 10-second invulnerability at the start of the action phase to combat spawn peeking.
A new Mode called Standard will be coming to the game and will replace Unranked. This mode is pretty much Unranked but with no Operator ban and Map ban.
Lastly, they are also adding a new arcade game mode called Weapon Roulette, a fast game mode coming to the Arcade playlist as this mode lets all players start with the same gun that will automatically swap to a new one after a set amount of time.
Balancing
Major Operator changes next season are for the Operators Frost, Fuze, and Grim. The Frost gadget rework was seen in the game’s test servers and it looks like they are set to launch it to live servers during the launch of Heavy Mettle as the Frost Mats are no longer a complete loss when a player gets caught in one. When downed by a Frost Mat, the player can remove themselves from the trap, but this takes time and will leave you in a walking state for the rest of the match with you leaving a trail of blood for defenders to follow. If a friend helps you out of the Frost Mat, the gadget will work as it was before, with you back on your feet with a smaller health pool.
Fuze gets a slight buff as he can now attach his gadget on the defender shield and even on Osa’s shield, giving the operator more options to utilize his gadget. Lastly, we have another buff the Attacker Grim as his gadget has an alternative fire that allows him to bounce his gadget to be able to hit unreachable sections of a room.
The shotgun weapon type (not slug shotguns) is getting buffed as well next season as Ubisoft aims to make shotguns more viable for players during fights and not just more utility.
This season also comes with more tutorials to assist new players and the ability to remove the game’s HUD when watching games in Match Replay.
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