This week has already produced a burst of small-but-significant developments for Rainbow Six Siege, and there's more. Today, we learned that deployable bulletproof cameras are coming to the game, along with a rework of the movement system and buffs to Echo—and they'll be available on the next test server, along with several other changes.

We don’t yet know how the camera works, but it’ll probably behave along the lines of the already existing Valkyrie cameras, and be available exclusively to the defending side, although it is possible it could be available to attackers as well. 

How Ubisoft is planning to prevent these new secondary gadgets from completely supplanting Valkyrie’s usefulness to the team is also unknown, as it seems these bulletproof cameras will be a direct upgrade from her distinctly non-bulletproof ones. Perhaps these new cams will feature a limited field of view, or be heavily limited in where they can be deployed. Along with the new camera, Ubisoft is also reworking all 'Observation Tools' in the game, cleaning up the UI of all the cameras and drones to provide a better user experience.

Echo will gain a second Yokai drone and buffs to the recharge rate of his sonic bursts, a change which will hopefully make him a more attractive option, given his pickrate among defenders is currently second only to the undisputed worst operator in the game, Tachanka.

Also coming in the update are some changes to the core formula of the game, namely a change to dropshotting and the addition of a new Pick and Ban system, as well as a rework of movement speed. 

The dropshotting change in particular seems incredibly important. While previously a player could retain near-perfect accuracy while avoiding incoming fire by rapidly going prone, the new system will force players out of their sights while transitioning into the prone stance, which should help to prevent the use of this frustrating tactic. The changes were accidentally added to the previous test server, but this time they’re being added intentionally.

Above: The new dropshotting changes in action, as seen on the previous test server, via Reddit poster Medisniper.

The Pick and Ban system, meanwhile, is less likely to affect the majority of players, as right now this change is only planned for custom games and pro league matches, however Ubisoft is considering adding it into ranked as well. With this new system each team will be able to ban one operator, preventing them from being picked by either team for the rest of the match. The system should bring some variety, and potentially shake up the must-pick status of hard breachers like Hibana and Thermite. 

The final change is one that was hinted at in an earlier AMA: Ubisoft will be adjusting the speeds of all operators in the next patch, with three-speed operators becoming slightly slower, and one-speeders becoming slightly faster, as well as all operators receiving a slight speed buff when running with their secondary weapons. This change should help to reduce the dominance of the faster operators, and bring all of the operators closer together in terms of overall viability.

All of these changes, along with the ones already detailed in the mid-season design notes, are set to go live on the next test server, which you can sign up for here. The changes (which are all subject to change during testing) will be hitting the main servers with the next major update. Read the full test server notes here. 

During an AMA today on the game’s subreddit with members of the balancing team, Rainbow Six Siege developers hinted at changes to the speed and armor dynamic of the game coming soon. Currently the mobility and durability of Siege's 36 operators are rated between one and three. Bulkier operators like Rook move more slowly and have larger hitboxes, but in theory make up for their slowness with greater damage resistance. However, in practice, fast-movers with smaller hitboxes tend to win gunfights if they make small, quick peeks.

User PhD_Bagel asked a question on behalf of the Doc and Rook mains of the world: “[Are] there any plans to balance/change speed and armor? Currently, it seems that 3 speed is far superior to 3 armor.”

It’s not a question that most of the community would have expected such a candid answer to, as it’s a topic that the studio has mostly avoided for years. But user research project manager Julien Huguenin chimed in with a very clear response. “Yes. We agree. We are looking for ways to make both 3 speeds less dominant and 1 speeds more viable.”

Game designer Jean-Baptiste Hallé went even further, saying to “Keep an eye on the next Test Server. ;)”

In response to one comment, Ubisoft data scientist Geoffroy Mouret teased the possibility of new attachments or secondary gadgets coming to the game. “Check the Test Server patch notes tomorrow,” adding his own winking emoticon for emphasis. A new secondary gadget or attachment would be big: we haven't seen a new addition of this type since Operation Skull Rain in August 2016, which introduced the impact grenade.

The developers also took time to address the elephant in the room: Lion. It’s been clear since Operation Chimera’s release that the new attacking operator is extremely useful, boasting a near 100-percent pick rate in the Rainbow Six Siege Pro League. Before release, pro players warned Ubi that he felt dominant. And while nerfs are coming by way of decreasing the scan’s effectiveness and increasing the cooldown, Huguenin admits that this should have been addressed before release.

“One thing I would like to add is that we cannot always take the Pro feedback at face value. We always gather their feedback, and must make a decision on whether or not to act on it. That being said, for Lion, we made a mistake, and should have reduced the amount of charges and increased the cooldown before release.”

Hallé also addressed this issue, saying that by the time the team had gotten feedback from pro players, it was too close to release. “We did not have time to modify that system before the release of the Operator. This shows that we have room for improvement in our iteration pipeline.” He added that they are working on ways to improve their feedback and iteration loops so that this can be avoided in the future. 

Later, Hallé further reflected on Lion, explaining that “When Lion was in conception, many of us genuinely believed that not moving was an easy adaptation. Being wrong about that is not our biggest mistake. Our biggest mistake was the outline itself. It does not leave any room for counter play. This is a more general learning for us, and we will be extremely careful if we ever use this type of mechanic again.”

Players always love to hear about operator reworks, as they can breathe new life into a stagnant and low-picked character. In response to a commenter, Hallé said that three operators are being prototyped for reworks, and we should expect the next one soon. “We have 3 reworks in the prototype phase for some of our least used Operators (Not Tachanka). We have another coming on the next Test Server.” Sorry, Tachanka mains. 

One operator came up several times as a candidate for a rework: Echo. This hints that he's under the microscope, and that he's one of the reworks coming soon. There also seems to be a consensus between Hallé and Huguenin as to who the most frustrating operator to balance is.

A new batch of nerfs and buffs announced as part of Ubisoft’s new Designer Notes series could see a significant shift in the Rainbow Six Siege meta. The most notable is a hard nerf for Lion, who has seen a near-100 percent pick rate throughout the Pro League since his release. Other important changes include a mix-up with Hibana’s kit, Vigil’s gadget, and a universal damage buff for light machine guns.

The post puts forth a few graphs to give players some insight into how Ubisoft makes balancing decisions. The graphs map all the operators based on their pick rate and win rate to find anomalies that need correcting. On one end of the spectrum you have Tachanka, who has the lowest pick rate of any operator as well as the lowest win rate. No surprise there. On the other end sits an operator like Lion, who has an extremely high pick rate and win rate, and Ubisoft wants to do something about that.

Starting with the next patch, Lion’s map scan ability, which spots players with a bright red outline if they move, will only show the outline while an enemy is moving. If they stop moving, it disappears. It might seem like a small change, but Defenders being able to make small movements without harsh consequences could go a long way. On top of this, Lion will only have two scans instead of three, and the cooldown between scans is doubling to 20 seconds. "This is only a first step to give Defenders more options of counter-play against Lion’s detection. We are still looking into improving how Lion’s detection works and your feedback will help us get a better idea of how to proceed," the post said.

Hibana is also getting a bit of a mix-up in her kit, losing her claymore in favor of breaching charges. To explain the change, Ubi said that she’s picked far too often in Ranked and Pro League due to her "crucial utility." 

"She is better at gunfights than Thermite, but we want to adjust her utility before touching her weapons," writes Ubisoft. "Thermite will be the only hard breacher with a Claymore, and we expect this swap will rebalance their popularity." 

Hibana’s explosive pellets will also no longer be intercepted by Jager’s ADS gadgets. This is a big change, as firing one batch of pellets into a room can disable all of Jager’s gadgets at once. It’s an easy trade-off for the attackers to clear the path for grenades. This and the change in her kit could see her pick rate come down some in favor of Thermite.

Picking up Hibana’s claymore will be Ying, who will be ditching her smoke grenades. This change makes a whole lot of sense, as Ying has dominated the past few seasons of Pro League with her ability to both fill a room with smoke and flash grenades. Assisted by Glaz, the pair have been a winning combo for planting the defuser. But don’t fret for Ying’s viability just yet, as all light machine guns will be getting a damage buff in the next patch, an increase of around 10 damage for most of the weapons.

Rounding up the changes are Blitz and Vigil. The range on Blitz’s flash shield will be reduced from eight to five meters, and he is losing one flash charge for a total of four. Vigil’s cloak ability will now deplete after 12 seconds instead of 30, but it will also recharge in half the time, from 12 to six seconds. 

Ubisoft rounds out the post by mentioning some operators they have their eye on. Finka has an abnormally high win rate, but not a high pick rate. They want to reevaluate her ability and the buffs on friendly players. Ela is now in a much better place, they say, and they do not see any more changes coming to her soon.

One curious omission was any mention of when these changes will be released. As part of this announcement, the balancing team is hosting an AMA on the Rainbow Six Siege subreddit, so stay tuned for details that could emerge there.

Now that we know that Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 won't have a campaign, we can revisit our discussion from last month: do modern FPSes need conventional singleplayer modes As you might expect, there was a wide range of responses, and it's worth saying that all of us love good singleplayer games no matter what. We encourage you to join in via the comments below.

Andy Kelly: No

In this soulless, transient age of 'games as a service', big mainstream shooters definitely don't need singleplayer campaigns. They're lavish, over-produced wastes of money, frankly, offering nothing in the way of innovation or imagination. The campaigns in these games almost feel apologetic, like an item on a checklist that has to be ticked. And I think developers are realising that all people are actually interested in is having the same mind-numbing multiplayer experience over and over again.I would love the singleplayer FPS campaign to be relevant and interesting again. I remember playing the Modern Warfare one and being blown away by how bold and cinematic and provocative it was. But that was a million years ago, and all the genuinely new, forward-thinking stuff in games is happening in the indie space, or in smart blockbuster games like Dishonored. So let the FPS campaign die, because it outlived its use a long time ago.

Steven Messner: No. But...

Without doing the boring "well, it depends on the game" I'm going to say that, no, FPS games in 2018 do not still need a singleplayer campaign. Of course I love the idea of playing through more exquisitely designed levels like the ones found in Titanfall 2 (and who doesn't love killing nazis in Wolfenstein?) but when I also glance over at my Steam library and see the shooters I played the most in 2017, they were ones that didn't just have great multiplayer—they had no singleplayer whatsoever. Rainbow Six Siege, PUBG, Rising Storm 2—the list goes on. These games prove that you have incredible success and be enjoyed for hundreds of hours without a proper campaign. And it makes sense, right? As good as a campaign can be, it's typically pretty linear and doesn't last all that long. It only makes sense that developers would go for the mode that provides the most value to them (through DLC and microtransactions) and the players (who can effectively plunk hundreds of hours of fun into one game).

But what I think is really cool about this is that these games are now, more than ever, free to focus on what they're good at. As much as some FPSes are dropping singleplayer, others are dropping multiplayer. Gone are those awkward years when a good singleplayer FPS had to tack on awkward multiplayer just for the sake of it (Condemned 2: Bloodshot, I'm looking at you) and vice versa. Instead, both types of FPS can focus on doing what they're best at: We can have our Preys and our Wolfensteins, and also have our PUBGs and our Rainbow Six Sieges. It's actually kind of an amazing time to enjoy FPS games, and I love that I haven't played a shooter with an identity crisis in a long time (I haven't yet installed Radical Heights, zing!).So do I think shooters need a singleplayer campaign? Absolutely not. Do I think Black Ops 4 is going to be good without a singleplayer campaign... well, it's actually the same answer. But that's a whole other tangent.

Wes Fenlon: Yes

Yes. There will always be exceptions like Overwatch and PUBG that can thrive without singleplayer, but those are enormously successful and rare games. In 2018, the gaming landscape is incredibly crowded, and a strong singleplayer campaign offers something distinct and memorable that can potentially sell for years to come. It doesn't have to be a massive success at launch. Nu-Doom, for example, was one of Steam's top 100 bestselling games in 2017, even though it released in May 2016 (and I doubt most people were buying it for the multiplayer).Meanwhile, any multiplayer-only shooter is launching into an incredibly competitive space. What's going to convince players to leave CS:GO, or Rainbow Six Siege, or Overwatch, to play your new game? If it's free-to-play, building an audience is definitely easier, but it's rough out there for games trying to build a sustainable community and charging up-front. Part of the problem is the perception that comes from looking at the player statistics for those top games, and having the same stats available for every game on Steam: "Oh, there are 300,000 people currently playing PUBG, but only 75 people playing Battalion 1944? That community is dead. I'm not buying that game!" The same stink of death was applied to Lawbreakers shortly after launch, and that perception definitely turned some players away.Singleplayer is the most reliable counter to the overcrowded market. Or a focus on co-op, which I consider a bit different than full-on multiplayer—a game like Killing Floor 2 doesn't have a narrative campaign, but could still be enjoyed with a couple friends if the online community wasted away.

Jody Macgregor: Has no strong feelings one way or the other

On the one hand, first-person shooters need to have singleplayer campaigns if they're going to continue appealing to the market of misanthropic hermits like me who only play multiplayer games so we can complain they don't have bots, or if they do they're definitely not good enough bots. On the other hand, I haven't played a Call of Duty since the original Black Ops back in 2010 and now just play retro indie craft beer shooters like Ion Maiden and Amid Evil instead, so it's not like they were going to win me over no matter how much they spent on hiring one big-name actor for the single-player campaign anyway.

What I'm saying is I don't have a horse in this race, which never stopped anybody from sharing their opinion on the internet as the comments below will bear out. You should definitely check out Ion Maiden though, which is like Duke Nukem 3D only you can blow somebody up with a bowling ball bomb and then kick their head around.

Tom Senior: I agree with Steven Messner

Good shooter campaigns are hard to make, so when a great one comes along I treasure it and replay it over and over again. I've gone through Titanfall 2's campaign several times because the movement systems feel so damn good in that game, and the campaign's levels are built to get as much out of those systems as possible. 

That's the exception to the norm. I think we might be forgetting how bad poorly made singleplayer campaigns are. I was playing Duke Nukem Forever recently to satisfy my morbid curiosity, and quickly remembered how tedious it can be to blast rubbish enemies with crap guns. 

Steven might be right. Maybe it's better for games to specialise in one or the other rather than trying to ace two quite different disciplines. Doom didn't really need its multiplayer mode to be great. I don't crave multiplayer from the new Wolfenstein games. I'm just happy that studios are still making exciting full-length campaigns at all.

Philippa Warr: It depends on the game

What it comes down to for me is: Don't waste my time. 

There are so many game out there doing interesting things and I only have a limited amount of money and an even more limited amount of time. If a dev is prioritising multiplayer for whatever reason, that's fine. But don't then also commit to a singleplayer campaign that doesn't get the right support or resources during production and ends up dreary and dull.

Same with the reverse: definitely DO make your dream singleplayer project but don't then tack on a lacklustre multiplayer thing assuming that'll appease everyone who might wander through your door. 

Obviously this is from a punter's point of view. If companies are still doing it I'll assume there's a solid business case for it. But good lord, big games so often feel like jealous friends who don't want you hanging out with other people. Just be okay with me getting my singleplayer fun elsewhere instead of trying to be my everything! We can go for a milkshake and a gossip another evening. 

Andy Chalk: No

I hate to say it because I have zero interest in FPSes without campaigns, but no. Overwatch and Rainbow Six Siege demonstrate quite clearly that games can be wildly successful solely on the strength of their multiplayer capabilities. And honestly, I'd rather skip a game because I know it doesn't have what I want, than dive in and discover that its campaign is half-assed garbage tacked on to meet an outmoded obligation. (I recently played through the Battlefield 3 story, and it was brutally bad.)

Obviously that's not the same as saying that campaigns should go away entirely. Destiny 2 habit aside, it's games like Wolfenstein, Prey, and BioShock that keep me playing shooters. I played the CoD: Modern Warfare games for the campaign. On a personal level, singleplayer is completely my thing. But the business is big enough now that the pressing need for individual games to cover both bases just isn't there anymore.

Samuel Roberts: Yes, but it might make sense for Call of Duty not to have one

I love a good FPS campaign, and I do feel like singleplayer games generally are under threat—those that don't require tens of hours of play time and have loads of sidequests, anyway. But I stopped playing Call of Duty's campaigns after Modern Warfare 3, and if Activision and Treyarch don't put a singleplayer option in the game as it's been rumoured, there might be some logic to that. I would speculate that a decision like that would be based on what the completion stats are for Call of Duty campaigns these days.

And PC Gamer collectively hasn't enjoyed a COD campaign in years. Wes's example of Battalion is interesting, because Call of Duty doesn't need to worry nearly as much about a similar slide in player base. I won't complain about them taking it out, but then I wouldn't pay full price to play a new Call of Duty game either way. 

But I do think trying to do something interesting with a campaign is better than walking away altogether. Battlefield 1's War Stories are slight but exciting and novel. Titanfall 2 shows how you can reverse engineer multiplayer systems into something thrilling and varied. Maybe that's not what the vast majority of people find compelling about modern games, but I don't care, I like singleplayer when it's done well and will still pay for it.

We’re about halfway through Rainbow Six Siege Year 3’s first season, Operation Chimera, so now's a good time to sit down and lay out everything we know about the new operators coming in Season 2. Ubisoft historically doesn't reveal information about new characters before they’re good and ready, but they're also slightly notorious for leaks, and a combination of data mining and some detective work has already done a lot of the work for them. Let’s dive in.

Other stuff worth knowing

• Earlier this year, Ubisoft announced that Siege would be receiving a pick and ban system to make matches a bit more interesting. While the system won’t make it into the Casual and Ranked modes in Season 2, it will be available in Custom Matches and become the standard for the Pro League. Before the match begins, each team will take turns banning two operators each, one attacker and one defender, totaling to four.
• Since Ubisoft announced that they won’t be doing bigger Midseason Reinforcement patches moving forward, we can expect the major changes that would usually come around now to arrive in Season 2. This typically includes things like operator reworks and large bundles of bug fixes.
• Clubhouse will be the first map to get what the developers are calling a “map buff.” The overhaul includes a lot fundamental changes—the pool table in Bar will become its own separated room, the Cash Room and Master Bedroom will be joined and enclosed by what is currently the outside landing area, and the Armory will have a new set of stairs in the Blue Hallway that links back up to the Garage entrance.

I rarely get praise from teammates in FPS games. So when my Rainbow Six squad starts worshipping me as a god after pulling off a single kill, I have no idea how to react. I'm learning that this happens more than you expect when you pick Tachanka, Siege's worst operator, affectionately known as “our Lord and savior”. 

His unique gadget is a mounted LMG with insane stopping power. But it also makes him an easy target. Once enemies know where he is—usually by sending a drone his way—they’ll exploit his lack of mobility and swarm him. In a game dominated by stealth and quick thinking, he’s the ultimate misfit.

The advice on playing Tachanka is almost unanimous: don’t. But what if I only played Tachanka? If I dedicate the time to learning his ins and outs, can I make him a viable part of a five-man team? 

I set to work, reading guide after guide online. Among the photos of him relaxing on a sofa with a nice glass of red, the TachanCats, and Ubisoft’s own in-jokes, there are a few players taking their Tachanka strategy seriously. You can boil the best advice down to three key points. First, don’t be tied to your turret—think of it like you would another operator’s gadget. Second, reposition it often, especially if you’ve been spotted by an enemy. And third, try to place the MG in unpredictable places.

I jump into a casual game full of optimism, and die without a single kill. It’s the same in the next game, and the next. I always seem to be facing the wrong direction, and because his gun won’t rotate all the way around I’m constantly having to pick it up and noisily slam it down. I haven’t figured out how to protect my flanks, either, so I’ll often manage to suppress one chokepoint only to die to an enemy breaching another spot.

Things get better when I play away from the objective, setting up in adjoining areas and opening up new lines of sight by ripping through wooden walls. Enemies that peek me end up dead. Tachanka’s gun really is a monster, and all it takes is a quick click to delete them.  

I start to think more carefully about covering my flanks, giving myself small, manageable areas to lock down. If I feel unsafe, I abandon my LMG and try to find a new angle with Tachanka’s punchy SMG. When I’ve given away my position or killed an enemy I immediately relocate, and start to find off-angles that enemies wouldn’t usually check. As the hours tick by, I'm racking up at least one kill per round much more often.

I even use a few tricks of my own invention. My favourite is to give away my position, leave my turret behind as a slight decoy, and then kill an enemy when they poke their head around the corner spraying where they think I’ll be standing.

(And yes, I know that shield placement is woeful.)

It all comes together during a match on Theme Park. When the attackers finish with their drones, I plonk myself on the rail platform that splits the map’s second floor in half, aiming at a popular entry point. Sure enough, a Fuze tries to batter it down without scoping it out, and they fall to a quick burst from my LMG. Another attacker backs off, thinking better of it. 

I shoulder my turret and find another spot, this time pointing down a corridor that my teammates have said a group of enemies is heading for. I’m exposed but I trust the call and sure enough, one jogs right into my crosshairs. 

I end the round with three kills—just about the best I’ve managed since picking up the game—and I spend the next few hours perfecting my technique. The wins rack up, but a dawning realisation taints the victories. In Casual mode, you can basically make any tactic work. Most players don’t bother to send a drone through a choke before smashing through themselves. They don’t carefully peek corners, or work as a team. Everyone’s out to enjoy themselves and muck around—either that or they’re a new player learning the ropes. The fact that I can notch a few kills with Tachanka probably doesn't mean anything.

The real test will be Ranked. The mode makes me nervous when I’m playing with operators I'm great with, like Jäger. Here, my teammates' ranks are on the line. “Hey guys,” I mumble into my mic. No response. Okay. Let’s go for it. I click Tachanka’s portrait.

“Hey, would you mind not picking Tachanka?” asks one of my teammates. It’s what I expected. Not wanting to make enemies—and with no small amount of relief—I chicken out and play the match normally.

My next team is already joking around when I enter the lobby, and don’t mention it when I make my pick. But after two rounds on defence, they’re begging me to switch. Enemies are far too smart to be caught out by my tricks, even at my lowly Silver rank, and I die twice to foes that I never even see.

It’s time to change tack. For the next game, on Bank, I pick Jäger, and nail two enemies as they're trying to breach into the basement from above. I’m playing well, and when we win the next round, it seems like the perfect time to switch to Tachanka. Nobody objects. This guy’s decent, they’re probably thinking, so let’s give him a chance. 

Once I know roughly where the enemies have spawned, I set up my turret, carve a hole in the wall in front of me and watch the angle. I just have to wait, and if I get one kill, I’ll have done my job. Simple. Right?

One of the problems with playing Tachanka is that you feel more pressure than you would with other operators. When a couple of teammates die, all I can think of is them at their screens, scrutinizing my every move, watching me mostly stand there as they do the heavy work of roaming, checking cameras, listening for information, and flanking. 

I can feel enemies closing in, and the noise distracts me just as Hibana wanders lazily in front of my crosshairs. I panic, jerking the mouse as I fire, and whiff every shot. My opponent does a double take and taps me in the head. We lose the round. 

I get an earful from my team. “You’re so bad Tachanka!” yells AngryShoutyMan. “Why did you pick him? What are you, some little teenager?” I hold my tongue, but I haven’t lost heart yet. We end up losing on offense but I’m the only one to get a kill, and I still reckon I can do a good job on defence. Plus, I want to prove AngryShoutyMan wrong.

We’re defending bombs in the Tellers’ Office and Archives, and the round quickly falls apart. I’m more mobile this time, but I’m crowded out of some of my favourite spots, the enemy team methodically moving through the level, checking corners and flashing me away. The rest of my team falls one by one as I wait, useless, and with time ticking down I’m left alone on the point with two enemies for company. I hop off the turret and try to get an angle on the first, but it’s no use. I’m mowed down from behind. GG. 

AngryShoutyMan has seen enough. “You are literally contributing fucking nothing. Go back to casual, and learn how to play,” he screams down the mic. The first time he yelled I brushed it off, but something about it really gets to me. It’s not the anger in his voice—it’s the fact that, sadly, he’s right. He’s still raging down the mic when I leave the game.

In Tachanka’s current state he’s worse than useless in Ranked play. Even if you’re good with him, picking him is guaranteed to throw off your teammates before you’ve even fired a shot. And you can’t blame them: it’s impossible to tell whether you’re a Tachanka god or a griefer who’s playing to lose. 

I’d love to see his arsenal changed. Perhaps his turrets could deploy and pack up faster. Perhaps he could deploy two at once, hopping between them to react to enemy positions. Maybe his turret could be remotely controlled? Or perhaps Ubisoft, as it’s considered doing in the past, could take his turret away and replace it with a more viable gadget. The developer said last month that it’s not planning to make him better because, essentially, he’s too good a meme. But the fact that you can piss off your team just by picking him is perhaps a sign that the joke is finally getting old.  

Update: The bug has been fixed on PC—unclear whether it's been addressed on other platforms at this time. About 24 hours after we published this story, Ubisoft took servers down today for emergency maintenance in order to address the issue. That was quick!

Original story:

If you've been playing Rainbow Six Siege this week, you might've found yourself dying to German shieldbearer Blitz a little more often than usual. A recently discovered exploit makes Blitz aim like John Wick without having to leave the safety of his shield.

In an email response to PC Gamer, Ubisoft had no timeframe to share for a fix, but said it has become a priority for the developers.

The exploit allows any attacking operator with a breaching charge to execute a simple series of commands, boosting their hipfire accuracy significantly for that round. For ordinary attackers like Twitch, Finka, or Jackal, this isn’t a big advantage—you’re still better off aiming down your sights to fire accurately. But apply this exploit to a shield operator like Blitz and suddenly you've got a character who can reliably tag you with their pistol without exposing themselves from the front.

Aided by this bug, some Blitz players are scoring consistent kills from the hip at 15 meters without having to to expose their body or head. As you may guess, these fights feel one-sided.

The exploit was reported by one player on the game’s subreddit in late March, but gained steam this past week as videos showing how to execute it have begun to spread.

The Blitz bug echoes another devastating exploit that permeated Siege following the launch of Operation White Noise last December. The infamous “Jäger shield exploit” allowed the defender to affix a deployable shield to his waist and protect his entire body in a few easy steps. He could still shoot through the shield, but from the attacker’s perspective, he was a simply a bulletproof shield with legs sprouting out the bottom. Good times.

There's a strong parallel between these bugs in that they both favor a particular character, yet counter-intuitively, they can't be solved with a fast fix. Last year at the height of Jäger shield mania, community developer Craig Robinson took to the subreddit to explain why patching in a solution for issues like this is harder than it seems. “There is quite a bit that goes into the game beyond just an on/off switch for an Operator or a gadget . . . Disabling or removing a launch Operator (Jäger, Castle, Doc, etc), would lead to a cascade of other issues, and these would significantly sacrifice the stability of the game. This is why we do not remove Operators or gadgets when a glitch is discovered, and instead focus on fixing it,” he said. 

A fix did eventually come during the mid-season reinforcements in January, almost a month after the bug was initially discovered.