It seems like you can’t be a service game in 2019 without some sort of battle pass. Ubisoft has become aware of this and is correcting it by introducing the Rainbow Six Siege Battle Pass. The pass is a new progression track for players that unlocks cosmetic and lore rewards just for playing the game. That is after the initial buy-in, of course.

The pass isn’t coming out all at once, though. Ubi is dropping it in phases and it is slightly confusing. Here’s everything we know about the Rainbow Six Siege Battle Pass so far.

What is the Rainbow Six Siege Battle Pass?

Battle passes are the new-ish popular way for service games to make more money while giving players new progression paths for the game. Ubisoft hasn’t shared many details about Siege’s upcoming battle pass, but we know that players will earn “Battle Points” for completing matches that unlock rewards.

The Rainbow Six Siege battle pass has two tiers

Siege’s battle pass is releasing in two phases. The first phase is a free pass titled Call Me Harry. The free pass sounds more like a test than a proper release. It’s only seven days long and appears to only have one tier of rewards.

Rainbow Six Siege Battle Pass release date

There is no exact release date for the battle pass, but we know that the free Call Me Harry pass is releasing sometime during Operation Ember Rise. The full pass will release sometime during Year 4 Season 4, which will begin around December.

What rewards are unlocked in the battle pass?

From the brief battle pass trailer, we can glean three types of rewards players can earn: cosmetics, Renown boosters, and concept art (which will also come with lore about Siege’s operators).

Cosmetics in Siege range from headgears, uniforms, weapon skins, and weapon charms. Ubi already gives away weapon charms by completing weekly challenges, so it’s safe to assume charms will be a common reward in the battle pass. If you don’t have every operator, renown boosters are handy for quickly grinding the hefty pile of currency needed to unlock them.

The star of this collection will likely be the concept art and lore. Siege doesn’t currently have many avenues to tell stories with its operators, so this is a good chance to do that without impeding its multiplayer focus. Much of the existing lore comes from the in-game bios for operators. It’s often a little cheesy, but it’s fun to read about an op’s personality and interactions with other characters. Did you know that Mira helped Nøkk develop her stealthy gadget? Or that Finka got her face scar in a knife sparring match with Kapkan?

What’s the price of the Rainbow Six Siege Battle Pass?

Siege’s battle pass is following the lead of other popular games in many ways, so it’s not crazy to assume the same will go for its pricing model. The full-fledged Rainbow Six Siege Battle Pass coming later in the year will likely cost around $10. If Ubi decides to only make it purchasable with its premium currency, that converts to 1200 R6 Credits (which you can buy in a bundle without purchasing extra credits).

The Call Me Harry pass coming in Ember Rise will be free for all players, but it will also only last one week.

Will the rewards be any good?

Since we are talking about Rainbow Six Siege, that question is a tossup. Ubi releases new Siege skins every week and their quality is... inconsistent. Even the real-money-only cosmetics exclusive to limited time events often fall flat, so I don’t have much faith in the overall quality of the battle pass. On the bright side, that Dokkaebi watch charm is pretty neat.

There are a lot of ways to throw money at Siege nowadays

With the introduction of the battle pass and an expansion into limited-time events in 2019, it’s time to take an inventory of all the ways you can throw money at Rainbow Six Siege.

• Siege Year 4 Pass ($30)
• Operators ($2 to $5)
• Cosmetics ($3 to $15)
• R6 Credits ($5 to $100 bundles)
• Limited-time event alpha packs ($2.50 each)
• 1-30 day Renown boosters, the benefits of which can unlock operators and alpha packs (~$1 to $45)
• Battle pass (Unknown, but likely $10)

Rainbow Six Siege makes a lot of money for Ubisoft, so it’s not surprising that the company is looking for new ways to monetize that growth without appearing too money-hungry. Whether or not Ubi is pulling is pulling off that balancing act is up for debate. I’m just glad I can choose to ignore it all and play Siege as it suits me.

KFC's weird attempt to corner the gamer market continues. Recently the company ran a "World Cup of Games" competition on social media, asking people to vote for their favorite games. With almost 100,000 votes the winner was Rainbow Six Siege, beating out Minecraft in the final round. As the KFC Gaming Twitter account said at the time, "The turnout from the community was huge… guess we'll have to put together a reward for the R6 Siege family".

Now we've got a hint what that reward might be, with a video that shows competitive Rainbow Six players fragging each other to a soundtrack of loud guitar and growling, accompanied by the words, "Cash and chicken to be won", "See you there #KFCR6", and "September 23".

Sure sounds like there's going to be an esports event sponsored by KFC announced on September 23. How will Colonel Sanders find time for this and starring in his own dating sim?

What an odd turn of events. I do feel like some fried chicken now, but admittedly that's my default state and I'd rather have Korean fried chicken, which is the best kind and would also make way more sense as an esports sponsor.

Rainbow Six Siege will be free to try for an entire week starting from August 28 and ending September 9. During that period, you'll have access to 20 legacy operators, and all progress won during the period will carry over if you choose to purchase the game. According to Ubisoft, it'll be a 70 percent discount off the Deluxe, Gold and Ultimate versions. 

The free weekend will likely finish up just before the next expansion, Operation Ember Rise, hits some time in September. That's live on test servers at the moment, but Morgan has a good rundown of its new operators and the new Kanal map rework (which looks sweet). 

The game is also getting with the times and introducing Battle Passes some time during the Operation Ember Rise season. Cheerfully, the first one will be free.

There’s a lot of cool stuff coming in Rainbow Six Siege’s Operation Ember Rise. There’s grapple hooks, fire shields, a slick new Kanal, and some smaller quality-of-life additions. There’s so much, that it’s easy to overlook the less flashy stuff that will have a big impact on the meta. Here are the most important changes flying under the radar in Ember Rise, and what they mean for Siege.

Loadout updates: more deployable shields and frags

With the introduction of Siege’s new and improved deployable shields with small bulletproof windows, Ubisoft has moved around operator loadouts to reflect their higher power. Overall, there are now nine defenders that can carry a deployable shield, or a little over one third. That’s including new defender Goyo, who carries three fire-infused shields as his primary gadgets. Here’s the full breakdown of everyone losing and gaining a deployable shield:

• Smoke: Impacts replaced with a Deployable Shield
• Frost: Barbed Wire replaced with Deployable Shield
• Warden: Impact Grenade replaced with Deployable Shield
• Rook: Deployable Shield replaced with Barbed Wire
• Jäger: Deployable Shield replaced with Bulletproof Camera
• Mira: Deployable Shield replaced with Barbed Wire
• Lesion: Deployable Shield replaced with Bulletproof Camera
• Maestro: Deployable Shield replaced with Impact Grenades

Technically, the overall number of operators that can use deployable shields has dropped by one, but Goyo’s existence means that you can have more shields on the map at once than ever before (all the way up to seven, if you want).

Possibly to help attackers deal with all of the new deployable shields, Ubisoft has made the extremely rare move of adding more frag grenades to the attacker pool without taking any way:

• Dokkaebi: Stun Grenades replaced with Frag Grenades
• Glaz: Claymore replaced with Frag Grenades

That brings the total count of attackers with frags to five: Sledge, Buck, Finka, Dokkaebi, and Glaz. If you bring them all on the same round, that’s 10 frag grenades for defenders to worry about. Even if Jäger’s ADS devices zapped away every frag they could, the attackers would have four more. That doesn’t mean this team composition will become dominant, but expect a general increase in frag use.

Defuser timer

In Ranked and Unranked, the time to plant and disable the defuser has been raised to 7 seconds (down from 5). You might recognize this as the same timer used under the Pro League ruleset. Ubisoft briefly experimented with the longer timer during the Road to S.I. event earlier this year, but now it’s coming for real. Two seconds might not seem like a huge difference, but it could change a lot about attack and defense strategies.

For instance, the new timer means that Smoke's canisters can now kill the planter more often. At the same time, disabling the defuser post-plant has never been more dangerous.

Shield ADS time is now higher

As part of Ubi’s eternal quest to make shield operators less frustrating, the ADS time for all shield attackers (Blitz, Montagne, Fuze, and Recruit) has been raised from 0.4 seconds to 0.6 seconds. It feels noticeably slower (gif below) and makes it even more risky to initiate a fireright when a defender can see you. Recently, Ubi also made shield melee weaker—it now takes players into DBNO instead of instantly killing them.

The 417’s buff makes it the best DMR

Ubisoft is raising the magazine size of the 417 DMR (usable by Twitch and Lion) from 10 to 20. The 417’s biggest weakness has always been its awkwardly small magazine, so this is a big help. Statistically, the 417 is now the best DMR in the game. Its recoil is extremely low and its damage is among the highest at 69 (just 2 damage lower than Glaz’s rifle). Most players gravitate to Twitch and Lion’s assault rifle options, but the 417 now feels like more of a legitimate option.

Improved visual recoil for SMG-11, SMG-12, and Bearing 9

Ubisoft has quietly buffed Siege’s machine pistols, but not in a typical way. The weapons’ base stats are unchanged, but the visual recoil has been toned down. This means your screen will shake around less while firing, making it naturally easier to track targets and stay accurate. You can see the difference in this handy video from YouTuber Prodigo Pete.

Bonus round: New in-game operator bios

Nowadays, new operators have extensive in-game bios, but the bios of the original 20 operators have always been comparably barren. Ubisoft has partly remedied this in Ember Rise, adding expanded bios and psychological reports written by the in-lore Rainbow Six director, Harry “Six” Pandey. My favorite bit are the Notes sections, which depict R&D reports for each operator’s gadget written by fellow R6 members or the operators themselves. Some ops poke fun at each other gadgets, praise their craftsmanship, and express curiosity at how they work.

In-game bios don’t shake up the meta, obviously, but they’re fun lore additions that make Siege’s operators feel more like people. I get a kick out of hearing that Sledge and Thatcher are best friends and that Jäger is apparently an awkward goofball. There’s also some fun hints towards possible additions and reworks to operators, if you read closely.