Good evening, grapple fans
Ubisoft has spilled the beans on the next season for their tactical team shooter Rainbow Six Siege. Operation Ember Rise will – as with previous seasons – bring two new operators to the burgeoning roster of counter-terrorist characters, along with a reworked map, improving the flow and strategic options for a familiar locale.
Our new Attacker is Azucena Rocio Quispe, known by her call-sign “Amaru”. Amaru is a Peruvian archaeologist who has spent most of her life traipsing through the jungles, keeping important cultural treasures and finds out of the hands of vicious thieves and organised cartels. Having displayed excellent field traversal skills and a knack for anthropology, Amaru has been signed up to Rainbow as its newest Attacker.
Amaru’s gadget is pretty wild, even by Siege standards, and consists of a Batman-style grapple gun – the Garra Hook – that can take her from ground level to – or even through – a barricaded window with ease. This will allow Amaru to quickly and efficiently enter a building from her chosen position at speed, although she makes a helluva noise as she comes barreling through the boards. The Garra Hook can also be utilised to scale up through open hatches. Talk about making an entrance. Given the rapidity of her ascent, it’s difficult to imagine her as a team player, as she seems best suited to shoot off on her own and add an element of surprise to the breach. Amaru is a 2 Armour 2 Speed operator.
The new Defender is César Ruiz Hernández, best known by his call-sign “Goyo”. Goyo turned away from the local drug gangs at an early age and, under the guidance of his mother and her friend Amaru, quickly made a name for himself within the service. Settling with the Fuerzas Especiale, where he has spent years combating gangs, traffickers and other dangerous groups of criminals. Rainbow picked up Goyo having noticed his tactical mind and strong drive for the right and just.
Goyo’s gadget is the Volcan Shield, which looks like a standard bulletproof shield from the front, but houses a powerful explosive in the rear, which can be detonated when shot at, resulting in a floor of flames. The logic appears to be that up to three of these shields can turn a defensive setup into an offensive one, should the perimeter be breached, but we’ll have to see how this plays out, as this is not only a huge risk for the defending team (who are essentially sitting on bombs) but also, Goyo’s presence might immediately give away the fact that any shield you encounter may be booby-trapped. Still, it’s early days, so don’t bet against yer boy just yet. Goyo is also a 2 Armour 2 Speed operator.
Finally, the Kanal map is this season’s Reworked Map. A new interconnecting bridge has been added between the two buildings, while colour-coding has been added to the staircases to provide easier callouts. Several windows have also been removed on all objective rooms. I definitely find Kanal one of the more complex, but also most frustrating maps of the Siege canon, so it’ll be good to see whether this rework makes it a little more fun.
Operation Ember Rise is now live on the Rainbow Six Siege test servers, and is expected to launch on PS4, PC and Xbox One sometime in September.
