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Rainbow Six Siege’s next big expansion. Blood Orchid, is coming September 5th. The patch notes for the expansion have now been released, and it’s the game’s most expansive patch to date.
"3 months ago, Operation Health was deployed as a major initiative to improve the game for the upcoming years," said the patch notes. "With the launch of Season 3, we are putting Operation Health behind us with our final update in Season 3, which is our largest patch we have ever deployed."
The patch notes are a monster, with scores of bug fixes and minor improvements that you can see here. While many of the changes are small improvements to fix model clipping or memory sizes, there are a few headline differences to note.
Firstly, primarily, upgraded servers are being rolled out with the patch, moving most of the games onto dedicated servers that should be a lot more reliable.
The second big change is the game’s lighting, which has been changed so that it looks less photorealistic and instead favours competitiveness, with the lighting bloom that previously made fights between inside and outside imbalanced has now been removed, so you should be able to see cleanly through holes.
Other big changes are hitbox and ping corrections, and a variety of texture and data reworks on maps and operators to make loading and performance easier, which isn’t as sexy as dramatic visual reworks, but is essential for the game’s long-term development.
The final big change is a core change to how the game’s defensive operators will be equipped. All two and three speed operators will no longer be equipped with ACOG’s for long distance shooting, as Ubisoft feel that the speed they can reposition themselves or escape engagements too easily, which, coupled with the ACOG’s massive utility in long range fights, meant they were too powerful.
This means no more ACOG scope for Bandit or Jager, and no ACOG for any future two or three speed operator in the future.
There’s also an ammo rebalance and a reworking of the way that damage dropoff works, with distances now determined by what type of weapon you’re firing instead of the individual firearm itself.
Honestly, in 400 words we’ve barely scratched the surface here. Dive into the full patch notes and take a look.
