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Everything we know about Rainbow Six Siege Year 5: Oryx, Iana and Tachanka
Operation Void Edge, Oryx, Iana, Replay Mode and all the other updates you need to know about Rainbow Six Siege in 2020.
We’re now entering the fifth year of Ubisoft’s tactical FPS, Rainbow Six Siege, which means another 12 months of glorious content. After plenty of rumour and speculation around what could be next for the online shooter, it appears information is finally starting to surface.
A tweet from the game’s official Twitter account recently instructed everyone to “look into the darkness.” It sent fans down the rabbit hole. We’re glad you’ve ended up here, though, because we don’t want you scouring the internet for anything that will shine a light on Year 5 of Ubi’s popular team-based juggernaut; it’d be a waste of time, seeing as we’ve already done that for you.
Here’s everything we know about Rainbow Six Siege: Year 5 so far, starting with the name of the first update...
Operation Void Edge: what you're getting
Operation Void Edge, the first season of Year 5 content, has been unveiled. Included are two new operators, Oryx and Iana, in addition to a rework of the popular Oregon map and bans to both must-pick defender Lesion and attacker Twitch.
All signs point to Year 5 kicking off on March 10. Ubisoft typically ushers in a new season about three weeks after the reveal, while the season plays out across the technical test server for PC players.
The rest of Season 5
We got a closer look at Year 5 of Rainbow Six Siege content on Sunday, February, 16. Normally, Rainbow Six Siege’s seasons take place over three months, but it's unclear if that will continue this year as the Season Pass for the next year is only promising six operators as opposed to the usual eight.
The seasons will look like this:
This roadmap shows what we can expect from Rainbow Six Siege in 2020
© Ubisoft
March: Season 1 (Operation Void Edge)
June: Season 2 (TBA – with operators from South Africa and Norway)
September: Season 3 (TBA – with a "classified" operator)
December: Season 4 (TBA)
New defender: Oryx
New defender Oryx could be your new go-to roamer in Rainbow Six Siege, solely because he has such an extreme amount of mobility.
Oryx is, essentially, the Juggernaut. He can knock down attackers (including Montagne), smash through barricades and even push himself through unreinforced walls.
Finally, Oryx can leap up to hatches – providing they've already been broken – and either have a peek at the situation on the floor above or even pull himself up to reposition himself or get a new flank on the attackers.
Oryx is a two armour, two defence defender, and is armed with both an Mp5 and a SPAS 12, but he also has access to a Baliff or a USP. One of these shotguns will be useful to pop open hatches.
When it comes to utility, he has access to both a Bulletproof Camera to watch your back, or barbed wire, to slow down your enemies.
Want to make the most of Oryx? Here's a few tips:
- Play aggressively: Oryx can burst through walls, cover open ground and even put legendarily tough shield operator Montagne on his backside with the use of his charge ability. If you're passive, you're not getting the most of his explosive athleticism.
- Hit and run: He might feel powerful, but Oryx is still pretty susceptible to bullets. You'll do best with Oryx if you keep hitting people from unexpected angles, so charge in, hit them hard, and then run off and scamper into a vent or escape to a different floor.
- Know when to trade: Trading your life away as a defender is nearly always a bad choice, but as Oryx is so powerful at taking down shield operators or opening up direct lines of attack on the flank of the offensive team it could be worth taking a death. There's no hard and fast rule for what works here, but if you are single-handedly robbing the team of their shield operator and spearhead before he can harass your anchors, it could be worthwhile.
New Attacker: Iana
Iana is a scientist and astronaut, far from the usual cast of spec-ops
© Ubisoft
Literal astronaut Iana is Rainbow Six Siege's first albino operator but also the first to have been to space.
Her deal is to create a life-sized hologram clone that moves and sounds just like her, perfect to fool defenders and get them to waste C4 or bullets on her. Just a single round is enough to destroy the hologram, but it's an unparalleled ability to gather information for the attackers, and it constantly recharges, even if the hologram has already been destroyed.
She's clutching an ARX 200, the G36-C and an MK1 9mm, both decent weapons that are underplayed on Nomad and Ash, where they're often viewed as the weaker choices. She's also got a choice between Smoke Grenades or Frag Grenades, giving her plenty of utility.
Short of shooting her, the only way to know you're not dealing with the real deal is that she doesn't put out body heat and can't be scanned, meaning that a Maestro or Bulletproof cam will reveal her holographic nature, while she also can't be scanned on cameras, so you don't need to raise the alarm.
Want to bust into the TTS with Iana and make an immediate impact? Here are three tips to up your game.
- Make friends and influence matches: During early playtests at Ubisoft HQ, it was quickly apparently that Iana is at her best when she's played as a pretend entry fragger, drawing in defenders and setting the scene for your real entry fragger to burst out and get the refrag.
- Bait and Switch: Iana's holographic clone can't hurt enemies, and can't trigger traps, but you can still bait out utility: position yourself smartly so that you can only be killed with an impact grenade or nitro cell and bait enemies into tossing one at you. This will destroy your hologram, which will pull itself back together, but will cost them a valuable utility item.
- Make callouts: Iana's ability gives her the best risk-free way to gather intel in the game. Work on your callouts, and use your mobility to try and divine the location of enemies for your team. Call out anyone that engages you, and even let people know when a corridor is free so that they can move into position.
New map: Oregon
We're getting a reworked map this season with Oregon, which takes one of the best maps in Rainbow Six Siege and fleshes it out, creating new flanking routes, some new potential attack routes and the removal of the weak bomb site located in the big tower.
No tips here, because it's going to take Team RedBull.com a bit of time to work out what the deal is with the reworked map, but for now take advantage of some new routes to the basement and the expanded small tower, which promote more lateral thinking when it comes to attacking.
New Elite skins for Capitao and Ash: it's literally Tomb Raider
Capitao is getting an elite, and it looks rad, but the real draw here is the addition of an Ash elite skin as Lara Croft, Crystal Dynamic's legendary Tomb Raider.
Operator changes: Lesion and Twitch
In order to better redefine their roles, both Lesion and Twitch have picked up nerfs, reducing their effectiveness.
Lesion's nerfs are the simplest to understand. His Gu mine gadget no longer does burst damage when activated, but Lesion can no longer see the position of all of his Gu mines. Previously, being able to see your Gu mines positions at all times allowed you to set mines up and then hide in the middle like a spider. This was unintentional behaviour and made him remarkably strong.
Now, to see information on Lesion's Gu mine you will need to be close and have a direct line of sight. In addition, the increase in tick damage (damage over time) means that it's a longer-term threat rather than a pseudo-landmine. Lesion is in a very good place right now, so it's unsure whether these nerfs will bring him in line with the other defensive operators.
Twitch's gadget is also getting some changes. Her Shock Drone is getting the ammo count mechanic changed, meaning the drone will now reload ammunition over time, making it better for destroying gadgets. The damage is also being reduced from 10 damage (requiring ten shots to kill a healthy operator) to 1 damage (meaning 100 shots). This change effectively completely removes the threat of the Shock Drone, but makes it much more useful for taking out utility. It seems a good change, seeing as Twitch can already tear up the battlefield with her assault rifle.
In the future
Operator rework: Tachanka
Coming at some stage in Year 5 is a rework for Tachanka, and it's a biggie. That mounted machine-gun? It's gone, replaced by a man-portable machine gun which absolutely shreds unreinforced walls.
Tachanka's new gun can tear up unreinforced walls and it's terrifying
© Ubisoft
This should differentiate the weakest defensive operator in the game somewhat and will move from away from his current role as a slightly worse palette-swap of defender Kapkan. However, as his LMG is being moved from his gadget slot to his hands, so he's getting a new gadget: an incendiary grenade launcher which can bounce off walls, floors and ceilings before spouting flames into the surrounding area.
Could this finally make Tachanka a viable part of a defensive line-up? It remains to be seen, but he'll be entering the game later in Year 5.
The fiery projectiles could help Tachanka fend off attackers
© Ubisoft
New secondary gadgets: a hard breaching gadget and a defensive proximity alarm
Rainbow Six Siege's newest defensive gadget will beep when enemies approach
© Ubisoft
This will allow more diverse attacking compositions. Even though hard breachers Hibana, Thermite and Maverick are going to be the bosses of hard breach, it will free up long-suffering hard-breaching team-mates to play other roles, when the gadget launches later in the year.
Defenders are getting the Promixity Mine, which acts like the existing metal detectors, pinging out an alarm when someone walks past it.
Map reworks
House, Chalet and Skyscraper are all getting reworks this year. Don't expect too much of a change from House though, it's still going to be a cosy map that's perfect for new players to learn the game, but it should have a little bit more space and ease some of the pain points. These will be coming season by season.
