Rainbow Six Siege’s Operation Para Bellum is finally upon us, and there’s a lot to take in—new operators, a new map, and significant rework to Echo. We’ve put together some tips for the new ops and map that are worth checking out before jumping in.

Alibi

Alibi’s kit is built for mobility, so if setting up rotations is your thing, consider taking her ACS12 shotgun. It can chew up a wall faster than anything else in the game. It’s okay as a combat shotgun, but fires a little slower than the semi-auto alternatives. Most players will likely stick to her Storm SMG, which makes up for its low damage with controllable recoil and high fire rate. If you do, I recommend carrying the Bailiff revolver as a secondary, as it’s great for opening quick murder holes without wasting a clip of ammo.

Her signature gadget, Prisma decoys, require planning, precise timing, and good positioning. To better trick enemies, place them behind a piece of cover that watches a door, or a common anchoring spot. You want the enemy to peek a corner, see just a piece of your decoy, and fire reflexively. When they trigger the decoy, always be nearby to capitalize on their mistake. This can also work for setting up a fake spawn peek on a window, but enemies will wise up to this quickly. Also consider keeping your last Prisma in your pocket until you need it, like in the middle of a firefight. After exchanging blows and falling back, leaving a decoy behind is a great way to guarantee they’ll fall for it and give you the advantage.

Maestro

Maestro is a hardcore anchor, and the first defender with an LMG, the ALDA. This thing is a beast, outpowering most other defense weapons. It’s also relatively accurate when hipfiring, as its grouping gets tighter the longer you fire. He can alternatively take the ACS12, but the LMG feels like the easy choice in most situations.

His gadget, the Evil Eye, also plays into his role as objective guardian. The most consistently useful strategy for them is to have one watching the objective itself, and another watching the adjacent hallways or rooms. Since the laser has an infinite range and no damage drop-off, go for maximum field of view. The more square-footage you can see, the better. If you are zapping an enemy, only fire a few times and then quickly turn your camera away to hide the exposed area. You can also hide an Evil Eye near a commonly breached wall to zap away Thermite’s charge. And in the event of Dokkaebi hacking the Evil Eyes, consider removing them yourself or with a teammate's impact grenade.

Villa

Villa has lots of buffer rooms between attackers and objectives, which means there’s a lot of map to learn. One thing you should know going in is that it's divided into two main halves to the north and south. The first floor has a red rug that runs the length of a lot of the map, guiding you to the objectives nearby. The second floor has a large skylight that looks down to the first floor, but the only way for attackers to utilize it is rappelling, so defenders don’t have to worry about it too much. The map is also full of breachable floors and ceilings, so expect a lot of Sledge and Buck. The bottom floor wine storage is always safe for entering the building, but drone it out to make sure a roamer didn’t have the same idea.

Echo Buff

Echo might not be a new operator, but his buff in Para Bellum really makes him feel fresh again. Having two Yokai drones lets you watch two places at once and improves his survivability. Consider keeping one Yokai on the objective near your body to stand guard and use the other to explore and scout for the team. Be careful with the sonic bursts, though, as he now has fewer shots to work with and a higher cooldown.

Ubisoft confirmed today that Rainbow Six Siege's next expansion, Operation Para Bellum, will launch this Thursday, June 7 (or June 8 if you're in Australia). In addition to the two new operators and map, there will be a lot of quality-of-life tweaks to the game itself. One of these will see the controversial Tower map removed from Ranked play.

In an update today, Ubisoft presented six reasons for the removal. It's worth presenting them in full here:

• Tower’s overall balance is not where we want it to be for a Ranked playlist.
• Due to the size of the map, roamers have an unfair advantage as it takes a significant amount of time to drone and clear the map.
• Our Level Design team direction lends itself to more vertical gameplay.
• Tower does not include the competitive design learnings that we have applied to other maps, such as the buffed Clubhouse and Villa.
• Many areas are too dark for optimal performance.
• Difficult to play in a group that does not work together regularly.

These are all criticisms the Siege community have levelled at the map, so it makes sense to remove it from Ranked playlists – it'll still be available in Casual. And who knows, maybe one day it'll get a subtle remake, just like the one Clubhouse is receiving with this update.

For the full list of tweaks, additions and updates ushered in with Para Bellum, check out Ubi's notes. For a look at the new operators and map, here's Morgan Park's impressions.

New leaks emerging from the test server for Rainbow Six Siege’s new Operation Parra Bellum update might give us a hint as to what type of operators and gadgets we can expect for the rest of Year 3, including a new hard breaching tool and a gadget that might be its perfect counter.

The leaks come by way of redditor Artex3, who has reliably data-mined accurate info from the game’s client on several other occasions. The most interesting bits of info are code strings that refer to a few new gadgets. The first is a blow torch, which would presumably be able to penetrate metal wall reinforcements. The second is something called a “Hole Blocker.” Strings in the code suggest that the hole blocker is a projectile tool that might have utility as a trap, but it feels likely that it will shoot some sort of filament that can patch up walls that have been breached (maybe Ubi actually read my fan post from eight months ago!).

The third gadget is called the “audio alarm” in the code, and according to Artex has been around for a few seasons. This one has a lot of commands attached to it, including lines for “triggered,” stick and “unstickied,” and idle. Portions of the code seem to refer to points gained when killing a player “detected” by the audio alarm.

That’s a lot of exciting stuff to take in, so let’s go over what this could all mean for the future of the Siege meta. The blow torch seems to suggest that we’ll soon be getting a new hard breaching operator, which is consistent with what Ubisoft told us a few weeks ago. This blow torch-wielding operator (who we’ll call Torchy for now and forever) would be the first hard breaching addition to the game since Year 1 with Hibana. This brings the total to three, and while that doesn’t sound like a big deal, the effects could be immense.

Taking all three breachers, Thermite, Hibana, and Torchy, on one squad would drastically expand how much of an objective can be opened if the defenders aren’t on their toes. Hibana has historically had a higher pick rate than Thermite because of her versatility. She can open two reinforced hatches and still have the juice left over to open line-of-sight into an objective wall. Torchy, on the other hand, could have even fewer limitations to their ability. Perhaps their torch runs on fuel instead of a use limit, meaning you can cut up a wall into any desired shape assuming you don’t run out of gas. And in return, it might take a long time to cut through, leaving Torchy vulnerable in a way their fellow ops aren’t.

It’s cool to think about having more breaching capability on attack, but on the defense side, more breaching might be a balancing nightmare. The most reliable strategies for countering breaching at the moment are Mute and Bandit, and they both share an ultimate weakness: Thatcher. More walls to worry about means stretching their jammers and batteries thinner, and that’s assuming they’ll even be effective against Torchy.

But this could be where the Hole Blocker comes in, which has a wielder that we’ll call Blockley. Blockley could be the perfect addition to all of these breaching antics with their speculative ability to quickly patch up holes made by enemies. The big question is how durable this hypthetical handywork will be. Will Blockley’s patched walls have the durability of a normal soft wall, or a reinforced wall? Or even be somewhere between: a wall that can’t be shot through but can be blown through. On the trap end of things, perhaps the filament can be spread on the ground to slow down attackers like razor wire, and even provide extra protection from below.

And then there’s the new audio alarm, which sounds most likely to be an operator gadget, not a secondary gadget like the new bulletproof camera or nitro cell. This is because of the portion of the code that refers to it being a sticky device, possibly fired from a launcher. The alarm could take any number of forms, but I get the sense it’ll be a small device to make hiding it easier. The biggest question is which side will utilize it. It may seem like an obvious defender gadget, but it could also prove to be an interesting anti-roaming tool. Imagine entering a building and setting alarms at various doorways to catch a blood-thirsty Caveira in the act of sneaking up behind you. Either way, there’s probably more utility to this gadget than can be gleaned from what’s here.

What makes these leaks especially exciting is that they seem to be bringing things to the Siege meta that fans have been thirsty for. The breaching dynamics of Siege have been stagnant for a long time, so new breaching methods and new counter plays are refreshing compared recent operators that have focused mainly on intelligence and combat buffs. Hopefully we’ll see the fruition of this info soon, maybe even in the next seasonal drop.

Season 7 of the Rainbow Six Siege Pro League came to a head on Sunday during the finals in Atlantic City, pitting three-time champions PENTA Sports against challengers Team Liquid. Viewers weren’t surprised by PENTA’s strong showing leading up to the finals, but there was palpable excitement in the crowd over Liquid’s shot at winning the first championship for Latin America.

This is what made match two on Border such a big deal. After a disastrous first match on Bank that left Liquid with not a single round in their favor, their chances on Border were looking grim. But because this is Siege, what seems set in stone tends to be smashed open with a hammer. Liquid came into Border strong, securing a 4-1 lead early on. They only needed to win one more round, but a second wind from PENTA quickly brought that score to an even 4-4 overtime. Liquid knew Border was PENTA’s map, and they also knew how they like to attack it.

Going into the first overtime round, they decided to try something different.

It’s important to know that when it comes to the Pro League, sites are typically defended in one or two ways that best fit the current meta. So, on Liquid’s defense of the Armory Lockers area, the casters, viewers, and PENTA expected a standard set up designed to focus coverage on the south balcony walls with vision into the Archives and Office in case of a push from those directions.

Instead, Liquid did the opposite. Their defense echoed setup strategies of old. They had a special mind game up their sleeve. Liquid set up mostly in the Office and Archives, leaving the sensitive Locker site vulnerable with only S3xyCake on Echo to fend it off. Liquid then reinforced only part of the large east wall in Office, to the casters’ confusion and skepticism. But to Liquid’s ziG (playing Valkyrie), that “overlooked” wall was the bait. PENTA approached the office wall with three of its members ready to push in while one covered the nearby window.

A few seconds after Thermite had blown down the wall, ziG went for the runout on the window and was able to instantly take out the Thermite and IQ before getting gunned down by the third. A few seconds later, PENTA’s star player Pengu, pushing from the same window he has confidently fragged from in the past, gets gunned down by Smoke, anticipating this exact moment.

PENTA's Fabian and Kantoraketti were frazzled. It was early in the round, and they were left with a 2v4. With no more drones to scout locations, the pair launched a final push into Archives, and were almost able to redeem their mistakes. With Kanto down and Fabian in a 1v3, he quickly picked off the head of a crouching Jager before meeting his end by way of S3xyCake, who had been patiently waiting on the vulnerable western flank in case of a push.

It was an excellent round that showcased how effective it can be to switch things up on a team that tends to attack in predictable (yet effective) ways. It wasn’t the most defensible strategy on its own, but one that worked perfectly against the players they had studied leading up to this point.

Liquid’s win here gave them momentum to eventually win in overtime and take PENTA to a final showdown on Consulate. And in a reversed fate of the first match, Liquid won over PENTA with an overwhelming 5-1 lead. Liquid took the stage as the first champions for their region in the game’s history, and the crowd was all about it.