The Six Invitational 2020 wraps up today, and Ubisoft held its annual panel detailing the year ahead for Rainbow Six Siege. This time, they revealed roadmaps for Years 5 and 6 and detailed a load of new features coming to the game over the next 12 months.

I came out of the Six Invitational last year thinking that 2019 would be Siege's best year, but it ended up being fairly standard. The addition of Reverse Friendly Fire was game-changing, and probably the single best thing to happen to the game since 2017's Operation Health. But based on what was shown today, 2020 is likely to be the most significant year for Siege and everything surrounding it: the community, the esports scene, and the game's overall growth.

Year 5

Year 5 is described as a "hybrid year," with the game transitioning from two new Operators per season to one new Operator beginning in Season 3. By reducing the number of new Operators, Ubisoft hopes to allow for more significant gameplay tweaks and reworks each season. This will also manifest through regular arcade playlists that offer limited-time modes with unique rules. The first one coming in Year 5 is an homage to Goldeneye'sGolden Gun, wherein players fight with one-hit kill pistols that must be reloaded after every shot.

The map reworks here are exciting. Really interested to see how exactly they change House, which is notable for being the map shown in the game's E3 2014 reveal. Not shown here is the Tachanka rework, something that Ubisoft had previously said they weren't going to do. His mounted LMG is being turned into a primary weapon, and his new gadget is an incendiary grenade launcher. That sounds awesome.

Ubisoft will also be doing regular battle passes beginning this year. They've run a couple over the last few months to test the waters, with the most recent one contributing to the Six Invitational's prize pool.

Finally: a small rework of Lesion was revealed. His Gu mines will no longer be visible without line of sight, and they will no longer cause initial damage when stepped on. This might be enough for my team to stop banning him every match.

New Additions

Match Replay

• An in-game match replay system will be added in the first half of Year 5. Players will have access to the same spectator tools used in Pro League, including an overhead free camera. This will be huge for content creators and for players looking to relive their finest (and worst) moments. I'm already stoked for this.

Enhanced Ping System

• Likely inspired by the success of Apex Legends, Siege's existing limited ping system will be getting an overhaul that will allow Attackers to mark Defender gadgets and traps. This one's interesting; the only time you'll ever hear me be any kind of "Siege purist" is if we lose the art of verbally communicating the exact placement of traps in specific rooms to your teammates because you can just ping them now and forget about it... but let's be honest, this will be great for new and veteran players. There's already enough to talk about during a round that I really can't complain.

New Gadgets

• Siege hasn't seen any new gadgets added in a while. Ubisoft teased a new gadget for both sides: a hard-breach gadget for Attackers, and a Proximity Alarm for Defenders. The hard-breach gadget is clearly the bigger story here, since breaking through reinforced walls has previously been restricted to three Operators. If the gadget's capability is limited enough, it could be a great way to bring more flexibility to the Attackers when pushing rooms without a hard-breacher.

Map Ban in Ranked

• Teams in the Pro League vote to ban maps before a match, and a version of this will be coming to Ranked. Teams will be ban 2 maps from a random pool of 3 at the start of a match.

New Reputation System

• A little unclear as to what this entails exactly, but Siege will be getting a score-based reputation system determined by a player's behavior. Sure, why not?

Lara Croft?

• For some reason, Ash will be getting a new Elite Set in Year 5 Season 1 based on the original design of Lara Croft. Crystal Dynamics was mentioned in the panel as a partner in its design. Sure, why not?

Tweaks

Yesterday, Ubisoft detailed some specific tweaks being introduced in the first season of Year 5.

Redesigned Barricade Destruction

• A long requested tweak, player vision will no longer be blocked by pieces of wood when breaking through a wood barricade. Punching a barricade will create a clean hole, while still leaving tell-tale debris on the ground. This needed to happen long ago, and I wonder if it was a particularly difficult technical challenge. Nearly everyone who has put time into Siege has had their vision obstructed by debris that may or may not have been visible on their opponent's screen, creating frustrating scenarios.

Prep Phase Droning

• Attacker drones will now start at the player's first spawn choice during the round prep phase. Previously the drones spawned in random locations around the map.

Resigned Multiplayer Menu

• Nothing game-changing here, but the screen listing the game's modes will be getting a new design that actually looks fairly similar to Overwatch's menu.

Year 6

Ubisoft didn't go into tremendous detail about Year 6, but it was brought up to show what the 2020 transition year will lead into. The most exciting thing to me that was teased for Year 6 is the Rainbow Six Cup, an in-game tournament system that will take place on weekends and feature skill-based brackets. The Custom Games feature allows for the creation of private matches between two teams, but that requires manual organization by the players. Hopefully this feature will have matchmaking, so you only need four like-minded friends to participate.

Esports

Siege esports is moving to a regionalized format beginning in 2021. I have only very casually followed this scene for the last few years and couldn't possibly explain the significance of this myself. Ubisoft wrote up a post about it today.

New Cinematic

Finally, Ubisoft debuted a new story cinematic. I wish they could do more of these. It's still weirdly uncanny to see these characters, who are normally quite rigid and not very chatty during a match, given this amount of life, but I'm way into it.

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It's easy to feel rejuvenated and energized for the coming year of Siege with a new roadmap. It's probably no coincidence that Ubisoft chooses to reveal their upcoming plans shortly before the grand final, when fans are already at their most excited. But it's impossible to not come out of this year's event feeling extremely confident about the game's direction and continued growth.

My only request for Year 5 that was not addressed this weekend: delete Villa from the game. Thanks.