Two years and two months into Rainbow Six Siege's lifespan, who would've wagered that the serious, tactical FPS born from a 912-page Tom Clancy book would be going all-in on alien zombies?

Outbreak, the new three-player co-op mode coming March 6, is weird, refreshing, and unexpected, until you remember it's practically a right of passage for popular multiplayer FPSes to tack on some kind of wave-based co-op distraction. Call of Duty: WWII Zombies. PUBG zombies. Overwatch's Uprising. Heck, Counter-Strike has a free-to-play Korean-developed zombie spinoff.

Accepting these thematic gymnastics as inevitable, the real question is how well zombies, and the style of wandering co-op we've been playing since Valve did it in 2008, fit into Rainbow Six Siege. Pretty well, actually. You can check out about 15 minutes of in-game footage above.

Left Six Dead 

After playing Outbreak a bunch this weekend, I see it as a palate cleanser for Siege's otherwise deliberate play. You're gunning through a couple hundred monsters over 20 or so minutes, often emptying mags as fast as you can attach them to your gun. Outbreak completely foregoes the stealth, information play, and deception that's plentiful in Siege's multiplayer. Offensive destructibility is deemphasized, too—you're not breaching and clearing as much as you're just mowing down everything that moves.

I'm happy that Outbreak is more than a simple, wave-based defense mode. The three levels (not merely maps) flow like the first couple hours of a singleplayer FPS campaign, with radio dialogue from Thermite, for example, feeding you instructions as you meander to the next objective. The setting is unlike anything in Siege: a New Mexico resort, hospital, and junkyard devastated by a menagerie of mutant humans, converted by whatever alien zombie parasite thing has fallen to Earth. The intro cutscenes are straight out of XCOM, a nice touch, with your operators dropping in cinematically with your personalized outfits and gun skins visible.

By pace and structure, Left 4 Dead is the clearest equivalent. Most of your time is wandering between ruined houses and interiors, gunning down the shambling residents scattered in driveways and bedrooms. Occasionally, the format shifts. At three or four different points, my co-op trio had to place explosive charges on something (alien biological structures, or a giant door inside the house of 'patient zero'), then defend it from being destroyed as dozens of monsters swarmed our position. On the hospital level, one of our team carried an injured doctor (as you would a hostage in Siege multiplayer, limited to a sidearm) from floor to floor as we helped her gather the materials to construct a cure.

The enemies, as in Left 4 Dead, are asymmetrical, but the experience of tangling with them isn't identical. The vast majority of these monsters—probably 80 percent—are low-level "grunts." They appear human at first, and are harmless if you can pull off a headshot without alerting them. If they hear gunfire, see you, or if you point your flashlight at them for too long, they'll rapidly transform into an armored version of themselves and spawn crystalline arm scythes to poke you with. Otherwise, "rooters" can lock you in place, "smashers" are lumbering tanks who only accept damage from behind, and the "Apex" is a floating mutant wizard who spawns low-level enemies, can blind you from afar, and is an insane bullet sponge.

The best-worst enemies are the "breachers": fungal-looking, self-detonating monsters who crawl around on four legs. They come at you like a wall-crawling Boomer, and in the same way, blasting them at close range is a bad idea. I liked the way breachers altered my instincts to shoot everything in sight—I had to exercise restraint when they were around, but if I timed my shot right I could use them as a kind of walking explosive barrel to take out a few grunts as collateral.

So yeah, Outbreak is quite Left 4 Dead on paper, but the rhythm of it doesn't mirror Valve's shooter completely. When you encounter one of these special infected equivalents, there isn't the same drop-everything-until-it's-dead mentality on your team: it's simply a high-priority target. Health and ammo are abundant enough—this isn't a survival game.

Post-mortem 

Outbeak feels like an indulgence, for the developers—who I suspect wanted to explore some new territory after several years—and for Siege's fans, who get the most lore they've ever had in the game's history and a chance to see a few of their favorite operators in a very different situation. It isn't anything you haven't played before, but mechanically it works well enough within Siege's weapon and gadget set thanks to the fully-realized setting and over-the-top monster design.

The natural question, and it's one I've seen a lot, is if Ubisoft is putting in all this effort, why is Outbreak only running for a month? When I asked Ubisoft here in Montréal over the weekend, the answer was that supporting Outbreak over a long period of time would represent a bigger commitment—technically and otherwise—than it's ready to give right now.

Other than that, I think the book's already been written on seasonal PvE content like this in multiplayer games—devs like having these temporary modes as a lever they can pull to surge players back into the game. If all goes well, I'd be surprised if we didn't see Outbreak return briefly again in 2018. It's arguably the richest single package added to Siege since it released in 2015.

At Rainbow Six's biggest tournament in its two-year lifespan, the Six Invitational in Montréal, the Siege dev team revealed a handful of significant changes coming to its multiplayer shooter in 2018, all in addition to the new operators and maps coming in Year Three. Here are five major changes coming to Rainbow Six Siege.

Attachments for everyone

Beginning with the rollout of Year Three Season One on March 6, all weapon attachments—optics, grips, suppressors, muzzle breaks, and so on—will be completely unlocked at the outset of the game for everyone, including owners of Siege's Starter edition. This change will certainly help new players jump into Siege more quickly, as the grind to earn renown, Siege's in-game currency, can force tough decisions about whether to save for operators, skins, or crucial weapon attachments. It's unclear to me whether current owners will receive any kind of renown 'refund' or other compensation for having already purchased attachments. 

Pick and ban

Siege is getting a system for banning operators in competitive play, not unlike the character banning phases of games like League of Legends. At first this system will roll out in custom matches only, available to everyone, but it's intended mostly for pro Siege players to experiment with. Sometime during Year Three (2018) Ubisoft intends to roll out the system to both Casual and Ranked multiplayer.

Alternating their selections, each team will ban two operators for the full match—one attacker, one defender, forming a total of four bans. Banned operators can't be picked by either team. In addition, both teams will be able to see each other's operator picks before the preparation (droning) phase, but each team can make a roster change based on this information that's invisible to their opponent. Another opportunity for information play and deception, in other words.

This system could be a tremendous change for Siege if and when it's implemented at all levels of play. For example, the meta currently leans heavily on 'hard breachers' like Hibana and Thermite who can break reinforced walls. If both of them are banned, a fundamental tool would be taken away—perhaps a sign that Ubisoft will add at least one more hard breacher to the game in Year Three. It would also likely make more objective rooms viable—taking away Bandit on Consulate or Chalet, for instance, would make a basement spawn point less attractive to a defending team.

Hereford Base facelift

We knew one map was due for a major rework in 2018. I figured it'd be Favela, which has been removed from Casual and Competitive rotation for some time. But it'll be Hereford Base, the symmetrical cube that's been played since launch.

The rework is not only geometrically but thematically aggressive. It's a flashback to Hereford as it existed 30 years ago, with a pair of WWII Spitfires sitting in the open where helipads rest in the current version of the map. This instantly conveys Ubisoft's willingness to demolish the tone and setting of existing maps and explore something new—it's interesting to think about what novel directions existing maps could be taken in.

Though we only have a single image to go on, the shape of the structure seems slightly larger and less boxy. Ubisoft mentioned that part of the purpose of the rework was to address issues with callouts and destruction materials, and that players should expect to see a lot of wood, concrete, and brick to clearly indicate what's breakable and what's not.

"Map buffs"

Before Hereford, Clubhouse will be the first recipient of what Ubisoft's calling a "map buff" in Year Three Season Two. These are layout reworks and rebalancing of existing maps, but the changes shown still seemed big. The uppermost objectives on Clubhouse, the cash room and bedroom, will now be connected by a new area, completely altering the rooftop flanking play currently available to defenders.

The pool table room and other downstairs areas are getting tweaks, shown in the above screenshot gallery. We're told to expect a map rework of this kind in every update this season, and one of Ubisoft's stated goals with Clubhouse and all forthcoming tweaks is to move objectives more toward the center of the map to allow the full progression of tactics to play out. That's a welcome change in my mind, as Siege is at its least satisfying when attackers are facing down defenders from a couple exterior windows, essentially nullifying lurking, scouting, and the other phases of combat.

More operators for Starter owners

Owners of Siege's Starter Edition, the $15 version of the game that requires players to pay significantly more to unlock operators, will now automatically be able to unlock six, rather than just four starting operators. This is a modest but welcome bone thrown to Starter owners, who currently don't have a way to 'upgrade out' of the worse economy they enter into by purchasing the cheaper version of the game. My assumption is that current Starter owners will receive some amount of equivalent in-game currency to compensate for this change, but I haven't confirmed this yet with Ubisoft.

Next month Rainbow Six Siege gets two new operators, the first of eight due as part of the Year Three Pass. The newcomers, Finka and Lion, have a few things in common. They're both attackers, they're both part of a new "CBRN" (chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defense) unit, both are 'middleweights' with two armor and two speed, and both of their special abilities are global (Ubisoft's descriptor), meaning that they affect the whole map upon activation. 

They also both rely on timing and coordination, and have the chance to be especially useful at lower skill levels. Here's a closer look at them based on my time playing Operation Chimera over the weekend in Montréal.

FINKA

Finka's a potentially powerful support. Her Adrenal Surge grants every living teammate 20 temporary HP for 20 seconds, and has three expendable charges. The HP can't stack, due to a cooldown on the ability, but it's a perfect buff for giving your whole team an edge in survivability before they breach an objective room.

More significantly, Adrenal Surge automatically revives any players who are downed, but not dead (except those caught in Frost's bear traps, who will remain downed). This works regardless of distance or line of sight, and is practically instantaneous. Downed teammates get back to their feet at 25 HP, but reduce down to 5 HP after 20 seconds.

Interestingly, Finka's surge has a few negative interactions with defenders. In the fiction of the game, the nanobots are boosting your body's performance and heartrate, which means Pulse will be able to track your heart at a higher frequency with his wallhacking gadget. Smoke and Lesion will also inflict more damage per second to attackers who are boosted by Finka, under the same logic that your metabolism is working harder, increasing how quickly poison enters your system.

More conventionally, Finka can carry either the Spetznaz 6P41 LMG, the SASG-12 shotgun, neither of which are new. Her new gun is a Russian bullpup called the Spear .308, an SMG with 30-round capacity, 38 base damage, and medium-high rate of fire (780). For me it fell somewhere between the SMGs of Mira and Lesion in terms of rate of fire and recoil. I'm not crazy about Siege's Spetznaz optics, but all four varieties, including ACOG, could be attached.

I'm not sure if Finka's ability will find tons of play at Siege's highest ranks, where one-bullet headshots make up a greater proportion of kills. But with Finka, novice players will have a mostly foolproof way to contribute to attacks, supporting their team at the touch of a button without having to aim or reposition themselves. 

LION

On paper, Lion's ability is absurd: three times per match, he can reveal the position of any and all enemies who are moving. It's a mapwide and teamwide wallhack: not only does Lion see all enemies in real-time, but his teammates see the same red, full-body outlines, allowing them to wallbang or corner lurkers. 

However, there's an incredibly simple counter to Lion's gadget: not moving. If you're stationary, Lion's eye in the sky won't reveal your position. Switching stances also won't trigger it, and there's a third counter—standing in the radius of Mute's jammers will block detection. It's nice to see Mute get some extra utility here. Once the team I was playing with got the knack of it, we arranged Mute's jammers so that we could sprint between bombsites freely, shielded by the umbrella of interference.

Another huge caveat: everyone in the match, attacker and defender, receives a three-second warning before Lion's ability triggers. This countdown is visible in the center of the screen, and gives everyone a quick moment to prepare. Being on the receiving end of it feels like deadly musical chairs: you've got just a moment to find the best-protected spot within 10 feet of you, and take it.

In practice, disciplined defenders can mitigate Lion's ability. Like Dokkaebi's annoying phone calls in Siege, earning kills off of Lion's trick takes coordination. It pairs best with attackers who can put grenades into the objective, like Fuze or Ying, as defenders tend to scurry when explosives or flash grenades are being thrown at them. If you can arrange your team to stir up an objective room or flush out a lurker like this, Lion's temporary window of omniscience should allow your squad to seal the deal by shooting through walls or floors.

Guns-wise, Lion carries a new V308 AR with a 50-round drum and a high rate of fire (850) alongside the 417 marksman rifle, with a much shallower 10-shot mag. He can carry flashes or a claymore as a secondary gadget, potentially allowing him to set up his own entry play.

Lion and Finka will become Siege's 35th and 36th operators on March 6, when Year 3 Season 1 rolls out. Check back tomorrow for hands-on impressions of Outbreak, the PvE mode also bundled with the update.

Earlier this week, Ubisoft gave us an up-close look at the five alien enemies who will be stirring up grief in New Mexico in the upcoming Rainbow Six Siege co-op event Outbreak. Now, finally, it's time to get the lowdown on the two new Operators being brought in to help deal with them, Finka and Lion. 

Dr. Lera Melnikova, AKA Finka, is a Spetznaz CBRN specialist who got her name as a result of a training mishap with Kapkan that left her with a long scar across her face—"Finka," according to Ubisoft, means "Knife." Her primary weapons are the Spear .308, SASG-12, and 6P41, while she falls back on the PMM pistol and GSH-18 as secondaries. She also brings breach charges and stun grenades to the party, and injects her fellow Operators at the start of each mission with a nanobot-laced serum that grants them a short boost of health when a signal is activated. Her speed and armor ratings are "medium." 

Finka was chosen by Rainbow Six to help set up its CBRN unit; her first choice for recruitment was Olivier "Lion" Flament, a combat rescuer and biohazard expert with France's GIGN. He packs a V308, 417 Marksman Rifle, SG-CQB, and a P9 pistol and LFP586 as secondaries. He's also got a claymore and stun grenades, and his EE-One-D drone enables him to survey and maintain quarantines by detecting movement within zones. Like Finka, his armor and speed ratings are "medium."   

Their bio pages go into far greater detail about their personal lives—early days, family woes, regrets, beefs with other Rainbow Sixers—which is interesting but, as far as I can tell, not particularly relevant to the space-zombie-shooting matter at hand unless you're deeply invested in Ubi's "Tom Clancy" game world. Whatever your interest is, you can get the full lowdown on the month-long Outbreak co-op event, and the upcoming Rainbow Six Siege Year Three, this weekend during the Six Invitational finals. 

"It's adapting faster than we can track," Rainbow Six demolitions specialist Eliza "Ash" Cohen says in the Outbreak briefing trailer Ubisoft released last week. "We up the ordnance, and it created this thing." A thing that looks like it would be more at home in Prey than a Rainbow Six game, but there it is—and there are actually five of them, each with unique characteristics and abilities. 

The otherworldly bad guys are actually people, transformed by alien parasites into unearthly creatures who presumably exist only to kill/transform every non-alien-parasite thing they see. Zombies from space, basically, although whether or not this infection can be cured, and thus the morality of gunning down its victims before that question is resolved, is unclear. 

On the other hand, I suppose it's more selective than a nuke, and Rainbow Six Weeks of Stultifying Lab Work Followed By a High-Profile Public Health Campaign probably isn't going to resonate with the pro esports scene. 

In any event, this is what you'll be dealing with: 

• Grunts - Grunts are common hostiles that become highly resistant when the parasite detects an enemy presence. To protect its host, the parasite armors its body and becomes more resistant to bullet wounds. Caution and stealth is recommended.
• Breachers - Breachers are proximity bombs that crater anything in their path. They make for a very agile opponent, but they launch themselves into the fray and blow holes in indestructible walls. Make sure you are nowhere close to them.
• Rooters - Rooters are a more rare type of hostile. They send out coral spikes from the ground to injure and immobilize their targets. Rooters are always on the move and will keep you on edge. Beware when dealing them the final blow; they become extremely lethal when on the brink of death.
• Smashers - Smashers are not discreet. The parasite reinforces its body under a massively thick hide, making it practically impervious to bullet wounds. They will also tear down walls without suffering any injuries.
• Apex - Apex is at the top of the ET food chain. It sends waves of hostiles your way rather than attack you head-on. They can hurl blinding projectiles, which can only be countered by Finka and Doc. This opponent is a real test of your team’s communication skills.

The Rainbow Six Siege 'Outbreak' co-op event will begin with the start of Year 3 on March 6, and run for one month. The full reveal will take place during the Six Invitational, running February 18-19 and streamed on Twitch. 

2017 was a good year for Ubisoft, which reported a "strong rise in sales" in its third quarter report for 2017-18. Assassin's Creed: Origins is a hit, the Rainbow Six Siege Pro League is continuing to expand, and even The Division is bouncing back, although I'm not sure what "player engagement," which apparently doubled following the release of the 1.8 update, really means. In all, it added up to quarterly sales of €725 million ($891 million), easily surpassing the company's targets. 

"Our very strong third-quarter performance highlights two areas in which we have made major strides. First, our games' live operations are making steady progress. This has fueled momentum for digital and back catalog, which both hit record highs this quarter," Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said. 

"Second, the increasingly recurring profile of our business has had a very positive impact on our new releases. By taking additional time to develop our games, we have been able to deliver three top-quality titles since August, including the grand return of Assassin's Creed." 

The success of AC: Origins following Ubi's decision to give the series a year off in 2016 is obviously good news for gamers who'd rather wait for a good one than get a half-assed effort on time. But what's really noteworthy, as Guillemot indicated, is the sharp increase in "player recurring investment," including sales of "digital items, DLC, season passes, subscriptions, and advertising," which leapt more than 87 percent to €318.5 million over the preceding nine months, representing 26.7 percent of total sales, compared to 20.9 percent last year. Ubisoft emphasized the value of post-launch content in an accompanying slideshow, describing it as "a major booster to profitability" that requires "much lower levels of R&D and marketing." 

That's generally similar to Activision's year end report, delivered last week, in which it noted that in-game purchases accounted for a huge portion of its total sales for the year, and that live games—"in-game services, features and content"—actually encourage player engagement, rather than pushing them away.   

Also interesting is that Ubisoft specifically cites "the PC opportunity" as a particular opportunity for future growth. Esports and streaming are obviously big drivers of engagement, but it also turns out that making "dedicated high-quality PC versions" of games leads to positive user reviews on platforms like Steam, and vastly improved overall sales: The PC accounts for 18 percent of Ubisoft sales in the 2017 fiscal, compared to just seven percent five years ago.