The new Hereford looks fantastic, with the old, bland concrete blocks being scrapped in favour of a WWII aesthetic that gives the map a far more distinct visual style, full of fighter planes, antique cars and crumbling brickwork. The map will still feature plenty of nods to the old Hereford however, something that the developers hope will retain the “soul” of the map, while making it far more visually interesting.

The rework will overhaul more than just the skin of the map. Hereford Base was the first map ever prototyped for Siege, and since then the game has shifted significantly, leaving Hereford behind. Nowadays, it feels clunky and bland to play on, in stark contrast to newer maps like Villa or Theme Park. Compared to the rest of Siege’s maps Hereford is tiny, leaving defenders very few options in terms of objective locations, and it’s far too easy for attackers to lock down the central staircase, preventing rotations and bottling defenders into the site, where they can easily be picked off. 

Changing this imbalance is the main focus of this rework. The map has been made bigger, opening up the cramped interior spaces to allow for more free-form firefights, and new rotation paths have been added, including a new set of interior stairs, which should make the map far easier to defend, with roamers now having far more options to set up flanks and ambushes. Overall, these changes are so significant that it looks like the new Hereford base will feel like a totally new map. It’s not yet confirmed whether or not the map will be heading straight into the ranked rotation like Villa did last season, but based on the confidence expressed in the blog post I would imagine it will be.

Also interesting is what this new map rework might mean for Siege in the long term. Ubisoft has differentiated this full rework from the “map buff” that Clubhouse got last season, which added some new passageways but left the map relatively in tact. These map buffs are expected to come every season from now on, but the rework clearly involves much more work than the buff, so it’s unclear when we can expect to see another one, especially if Ubisoft wants to return to the one new map a season format we’ve seen in the past. Many of Siege’s maps could benefit from major changes, especially maps that have been relegated to casual, like Yacht, Tower and Presidential Plane, or ones removed from matchmaking entirely, like Favela. These maps are some of the most interesting available in Siege, so making them more viable by adding new objective sites and rotation lanes for defenders, or by adding extra protection against spawn peeking and entry locations for attackers, could really help in making these old maps fun again.

The next season of Rainbow Six Siege officially has a name: Operation Grim Sky. Ubisoft shared the first details for the season on the Siege blog, reminding players to tune in to the full reveal during the Paris Major from August 17 to 19.

While Ubi didn’t reveal the names of the next two operators, it did share a short description for them and teased their appearance. The two operators have joined Team Rainbow as part of its Urban Tactical Response Team, codenamed Grim Sky. The post describes the British defending operator as “a tough police officer who’s an expert on mob behavior and snatch-squad tactics. She knows she belongs on the front line and she won’t tolerate any nonsense.”

We also got a brief teaser about the new American attacking operator, a “specialist with a remarkably sharp mind when it comes to tactical operations. He has seen the worst in Kabul. Despite it all, he fell in love with the city. Legendary for his surgical precision, he remains an enigma within Rainbow Six.”

We can unpack a few things from these sparse descriptions. First, our defender is an expert in snatch-squad tactics. This refers to a police formation meant to quickly penetrate a crowd of people and apprehend a single target, similar to a kidnapping. Operator backgrounds don’t always give us hints to their gadget, but the reveal image above and her riot control experience may point to her wearing the heavy armor of a 1-speed defender. Her gadget appears to be some sort of deployable tool with electricity, but it’s hard to tell. Leaks from May do refer to “hole blocker” and “audio alarm” gadgets that have been in the game’s code for a while, so it’s possible that’s what we’re seeing here.

Thanks to the same leak, we knew there was a strong possibility that the attacker would be a new hard breacher that uses some sort of blow torch. The attacker in the Grim Sky image is clearly wielding a blow torch, so it’s safe to confirm that much. Perhaps they'll be able to cut asymmetrical holes in reinforced walls? That sort of utility would distinguish them from Hibana and Thermite.

The description mentions the operator’s love for Kabul, Afghanistan. This might not be good news for fans hoping Ghost Recon Wildlands’ Nomad would be joining the team. Nomad’s biography does mention that he has worked all over the world, but the connection here is looking less likely. You can’t make out too many details in the image, but the mystery operator doesn’t look much like his default look from the game.

Grim Sky will also bring a complete map rework for one of Siege’s old classics: Hereford Base. This will rebuild the structure and layout of Siege's cube-shaped base and shift the art style of the map to a WWII theme. 

A new recoil system that has been in testing since last year will also finally be implemented with the hope of fixing the game’s aim misalignment issues. More teasers will inevitably be dropped by Ubi in the next week leading up to the finals streamed live on Twitch, so stay tuned. 

As we draw closer to the Rainbow Six Siege Paris Major and the reveal of Season 3, fans are eager for any new info on the next operators heading to the game. While we have gotten some hints about what kind of operators we can be expect in the future, there has been no concrete info or leaks. Following the recent Siege-themed expansion for Ghost Recon Wildlands, however, some fans are speculating that one of the next operators is right in front of us.

The theory is that Nomad, Wildlands’ protagonist, will be joining Team Rainbow in Season 3, and the reasoning isn’t that far-fetched. First, we know that the next two operators will be coming from the UK’s Scotland Yard and the U.S. Army’s Delta Force. Nomad’s backstory reveals that he was in Delta Force before becoming a Ghost.

This is somewhat strong evidence, but lore-wise is a bit messy. If they were going to add Nomad, wouldn’t they just add him as a Ghost Recon member rather than his past in Delta Force? He could be introduced as a member of Rainbow in his days before Ghost Recon, but it’s a stretch. Ubisoft likes to play with backstories that see operators interacting with each other in their pasts, so we can’t rule it out completely.

The other credence to this theory is the existing crossover for the two franchises established in Wildlands’ recent expansion. The new mission pack pulls a lot of Siege operators for fully voiced cutscenes and missions that go beyond any story elements seen in Siege itself. The DLC is more than a simple cameo or Easter egg. It must have involved some major collaborations between the two development teams over a long period of time, so it’s not unreasonable to assume the same is possible for a potential crossover on the Siege side. The connection with Nomad, Delta Force, and Siege is strengthened by a clear relationship with Wildlands as a shared Tom Clancy universe.

But, if Nomad did join Siege, what would his unique gadget be? Some fans have pointed to a controllable aerial drone, as it’s a key tool for players in Wildlands. While this is certainly believable, existing evidence points toward something else. Back in May, leaks revealed references to a blow torch and “hole blocker” gadgets. If we assume these gadgets are for Season 3, then Nomad would have to use one of the two. If he does wield the blow torch, then he would fill an important role as Siege’s third hard breacher.

So yes, the precedent is there for a crossover like this and Nomad does have solid ties to what we know about the next operators, but it’s admittedly thin. It’s fun to speculate about stuff like this, but it’s important to keep in mind that Siege has thus far had a completely unique roster of characters, and they might not be interested in changing that. All will be known as we approach the Paris Major, where we can expect Season 3 to be officially unveiled to the world on August 19.

Earlier this month, Ubisoft provided a quick overview of its efforts to combat cheating in Rainbow Six Siege, which included a plan for a wave of bans on players with boosted accounts—that is, accounts whose MMR [Matchmaking Rating] has been artificially manipulated. Today it posted an update on that situation, saying that roughly 1,300 boosted players were suspended for 15 days this week, and promising harsher penalties to come. 

Suspended players will be returned to action before the end of the current season, but their ill-gotten gains will not. "We are currently assessing how we will be delivering this from a technical side, but all players sanctioned for this will have their rank and rewards removed prior to the launch of Season 3," Ubisoft wrote.   

It's a big move—the loss of seasonal rank and rewards (a unique weapon charm, mostly) is a serious deterrent along with a two-week vacation—but Ubi also emphasized that it does not consider the suspensions to be a long-term fix. "It was a stop-gap while we work on the solution, which is adjusting MMR gains/losses for all players in a match with a cheater," it wrote.

A timeline for that change to be brought into place hasn't been set, but it sounds like it'll be quite awhile yet. Ubisoft expects to have the system design finalized next week, at which point it will be able to figure out what resources will be needed to pull it off, and come up with a better idea of when it will happen. Work on two-step verification for ranked play is also continuing, and Ubisoft expects to roll that out sometime after after the start of season 3.