Rainbow Six Siege Operation "Steel Wave": Release Date, Patch Notes, New Operators, New Map, Seasonal Skins, Trailer, Gameplay And More

Published: 16 Jun 2020 12:05 PM +00:00 Updated: 08 Apr 2021 9:12 AM +00:00

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The next Operation coming to Rainbow Six Siege.year 5 is Operation Steel Wave - which will include two new operators (Ace and Melusi), an Elite Set for Echo and plenty of changes to Operators.

Two new weapon skins and plenty of game changes will be made with the climax of Operation Void Edge.

Here's what we know about the next season in Rainbow Six Siege.

You can read all about Operation Steel Wave by clicking the links below:

Latest News

Operation Steel Wave Arrives TOMORROW - 15th June

The new Operation will arrive tomorrow with the following maintenance schedule:

XB1: 8 AM EDT / 12:00 UTC PS4: 9 AM EDT / 12:00 UTC PC: 10 AM EDT / 14:00 UTC

The patch notes are also live.

Steel Wave Reveal - 15th May

The latest Operation update has been revealed and includes:

Two new Operators
The new proximity alarms
Tweaks to concussion effects
Amaru improved breaching
A closer look at Ying's Candelas
New sidearms for Kaid & Nomad
Kali's Lance fuse shortened

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Release Date

The release date for Rainbow Six Siege's Operation Steel Wave is set to arrive on the 16th June 2020.

We're expecting this date due to the usual three-week period of Test Server trials that occur on PC.

However, Ubisoft has announced that development could be slowed and the season may be delayed to the recent COVID-19 pandemic.

The maintenance schedule may be similar to the past season, which will look like this:

PC: 13:00 GMT | 9:00 AM EDT | 13:00 UTC
XB1: 12:00 GMT | 10:00 AM EDT | 14:00 UTC
PS4: 15:00 GMT |11:00 AM EDT | 15:00 UTC

Maintenance should last for roughly one hour.

New Operators

Just like Operation Void Edge, Season 2 will bring two new operators. In Season 1, we were introduced to Ianna and Oryx.

The two new Operators are Melusi from South Africa and Ace from Norway. A new NIGHTHAVEN recruit, Ace, swoops in to join the Attackers, while the Defenders gain a new teammate in Melusi, an Inkaba Task Force ranger.

Ace is a potent mix of the unpredictable and the bombastic, part showman, all professional.

Specialist Thandiwe “Melusi” Ndlovu combines tireless vigilance and hair-trigger reflexes. It asks much of its proponents and, in turn, Ndlovu delivers.

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Ace Loadout

Ace's special ability is S.E.L.M.A. Aqua Breacher - this ability will blow up breachable surfaces, with it deploying up to three times on walls.

Melusi Loadout

Melusi's special ability is Banshee Sonic Defense - this bulletproof ability slows down opponents with an ear blistering scream.

House Map Rework

House will be getting a rework for the next season, which has been touted as a "casual" rework from Rainbow Six product directory, Roy Del Valle.

The first item on the list is the size of the house itself. With this rework, not only have some of the existing areas been made bigger but an entirely new section on the South side, with two rooms on each floor and a staircase to connect them.

This new space has allowed the devs to add a new Bombsite in TV Room and Music Room.

Garage has been revamped, with only one of its doors being destructible and a new barricade added to give a different access option; but still makes a Defuser plant harder.

What was once Workshop is now a finished Girls’ Room with an attached walk-in closet.

Lines of sight have been reduced on the North side of the building, with the main door being blocked off and the shuttered window replaced with a hallway.

The Living & Training Bombsite has been removed in favour of Master Bedroom & Boys’ Room. Most floors are now breakable, so vertical play will be a lot more viable. Some hatches have been added or moved.

Amaru Changes

Amaru is getting a major rework to make her more unpredictable for enemies to deal with.

Not only will her hook animations and timings be smoother, but from now on she will only break barricades when she goes through them (although her hook will still break the glass on a window), and she will no longer need to break a hatch before going up, as she will breach it in the action itself.

Secondary Gadget: Proximity Alarm

This thrown sticky gadget is an essential intel-gathering tool and it works just as well for anchors as it does for roamers.

The new Proximity alarm is small in size, making it difficult to spot and is ready to use.

Unified MMR & Champions Rank

Big changes are coming to the Matchmaking Rating system.

Players will no longer have different MMRs for each region and will now be unified. However, your matchmaking ranking will remain separate in different playlists.

This change will, in fact, cause the Champions’ leaderboard to be worldwide, making it all the more challenging to reach that top spot.

To achieve Champion rank, you will need to have played a minimum of 100 matches on top of the 5000 MMR threshold.

Elite Echo Set

This season's elite skin features Echo, depicting him from an alternate universe, where he is the hero of his own city and no criminal can hope to match him in combat.

This set contains Echo’s Tenkamusou uniform, victory animation, gadget skin for his Yokai Drones and weapon skins for the SUPERNOVA, MP5SD, P229, and BEARING 9, as well as the Elite Echo Chibi charm.

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Operators Price Decrease

Four Operators are getting a price decrease with this season. This time, Alibi and Maestro are going down to 15,000 Renown or 350 R6 Credits, and Nøkk and Warden’s prices will be 20,000 Renown or 480 R6 Credits.

Weapon Skins

This time, two new seasonal weapon skins are coming including the Wooden Carvings and Beach Trip skins.

Seasonal weapon skins are released upon season launch and can be purchased during the season.

Once unlocked, the seasonal weapon skins can be applied to all available weapons

steel wave weapon skins wooden carvings skin beach trip

Patch Notes

Changes are coming to the new season including the Operators, tweaks, improvements and bug fixes.

Operator Changes

CLASH
- Clash's SMG will switch from having a red dot to using the reflex's green triangle.
ECHO
- Removed the camera shake effect from Yokai's concussion effects.
- Length of concussion effect is no longer affected by movement. Now has a fixed duration of 10s and the intensity of the vision disruption stays fixed throughout the effect.
- Replaced the Deployable Shield with Impact Grenades.
FINKA
- Increased base hp to 30 (from 5) for teammates revived by Finka's Nanoboost. DBNO Players will stand up with 50 hp (30 from own base hp + 20 from Finka boost).
KAID
- Added LFP586 secondary to loadout.
KALI
- Reduced LV Explosive Lance's fuse time to 1.5s (down from 2.5s).
- Improved CSRX 300 recoil through reduced weapon climb after each shot.
- Replaced P22 Mk5 with SPSMG9 in loadout.
NOMAD
- Added PR892 secondary weapon to loadout.
ORYX
- Reduced damage taken when dashing through walls to 5 (down from 10).
- Bulletproof Camera replaced with new Proximity Alarm secondary gadget.
- Added angled grip option to Oryx's MP5.
ELA, ZOFIA
- Eliminated the mouse sensibility modifier from concussion effect of the Bosak sisters' gadgets.
YING
- Removed a Candela to bring it down to 3 (from 4 Candelas). - Changed for PC on 04-30-2020.

Tweaks And Improvements

Updates to Playlist Guides

The Ranked Guide will now reflect the current season and you will still be able to see all the ranked charm rewards, as well as your previous highest rank for the past 3 seasons.

Map rotations for both Ranked and Quickmatch will now also rotate automatically three times per season and the current map pool information will be displayed in the Playlist guides.

Audio Localizations

Localization recordings for the new Operators Ace + Melusi will not be available in French and Russian for the season release.

Even when the audio settings are set to French/Russian, players will hear the English voiceovers. Until this is updated, players can turn on the subtitles for Ace + Melusi until the game is updated with localized voices at a later date.

The Japanese localized voiceovers for Frost and Capitao have been updated to be more in line with the current Operators.

Match Cancellation

Match Cancellation is a new feature that will allow players to cancel their current Ranked match under the condition that team sizes are unbalanced at the beginning of the match (eg: if players disconnect before the first round, or if a lobby is formed with less than 10 players).

The Match Cancellation vote option will become available for the incomplete team during the prep phase and a majority vote will cancel the match. A cancelled match will show as cancelled and have no impact on MMR.

Abandon penalties are still in place and players who abandon an ongoing Ranked Match are still subject to escalating abandon sanctions.

If a match cancellation vote is triggered, leaving before the validation of the Match Cancellation vote will also result in an abandon penalty. Players should remain in the game until the Match Cancellation vote is validated and the game has been cancelled.

The Match Cancellation feature will first deploy to the seasonal TS for testing and will go live later in the season.

Changes to Ranked Clearance Level and Champion Rank Requirements

Ranked clearance level changed from 30 to 50.
To reach Champion Rank, players must have 5000 MMR and additionally, they now must have played at least 100 ranked matches in the current season.

By combo-ing increased clearance level requirements for Ranked together with the PvE XP level cap, it reduces the chances of cheating.

Benchmarking Update

Improved Benchmarking Tool to deliver detailed performance reports about player’s hardware specifications and graphics settings. Please note that the values may differ from before as benchmarking is now performed on the map Oregon instead of House.

Event And Arcade Playlist

In Operation Void Edge, we received the Golden Gun arcade playlist.

It's yet to be confirmed what will arrive in the next season.

Year 5 Road Map

Year 5 Pass

So what does the Year 5 pass include?

1-year* VIP Membership
6 new Year 5 operators
6 headgear and 6 uniforms
1 R6 Charm
1 Seasonal Weapon skin
1 full Operator Bundle (Jäger Byte)

VIP Perks:

7-day early access to each season's new Operators
10% discount in in-game shop**
5% Renown boost
30% discount and 30% faster progression on Battle Passes
0,3% Alpha Pack Boost

Guides

If you're looking to get more Renown or improve your gameplay, check out our guides here:

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