Jean-Baptiste Halle, Game Director of Rainbow Six Siege Montreal, shared the details of the development of Operator Flores, the Gonne-6 weapon and other new features for the first season of 2021.
See also: Rainbow Six Siege: 6 days after the start, the Six Invitational was postponed
With or without the Six Invitational, Ubisoft brought us all the big changes to Rainbow Six Siege in 2021. For this year, the publisher keeps the same focus as last year: new targeted content for its long-time fans, including new agents, lots of reworks and meta Changes, but also more and more accessibility to reach new players and consolidate their base than the arrival of better servers.
The Crimson Heist season is introduced to kick off the sixth year of competitive tactical shooting. It will bring the new attack agent Flores, the secondary weapon Gonne-6 for many attackers, the redesign of the Frontire (Border) map and other new features.
Crimson Heist or the Ode to Destruction
End the subtle surveillance introduced by the last two operators Aruni and Zro: the place will be destroyed earlier this year. The device of the new agent Flores allows him to put a drone on his feet that can neither move back nor stop: it continues its course for a maximum of 10 seconds and then explodes with 3 after a detonation, which can be caused at any time Delay seconds.
If it explodes near an enemy, they are eliminated with one blow. But The drone can also make it possible to damage the opposing team’s defenses, create a distraction or even chase defenders by forcing them to take a riskier position. If used in coordination with other operators, it can be devastating, especially since Flores has 4 charges of this gadget in one turn. Flores will be very good at either denying utilities that are blocking us like a shield or maestro camera or forcing a defender to move away from his position. , explains Rainbow Six game director Jean-Baptiste Halle.
In contrast to some agents like Maverick, Flores did not present any major technical challenges. The gadget is easy to use and allows for errors with 4 charges available. So it’s the door of all playersand it seems powerful enough to have a significant impact on the meta. Ubisoft has managed to make its gadget a unique drone compared to basic drones and Twitch’s. Lots of players should get it out of it. Jean-Baptiste Halle gives us some information about its development:
We started early enough with the idea of an explosive drone with a finite lifespan where you would have a certain amount of time to reach your destination, with limitations that would encourage you not to use it just like a spotting drone. but use it actively.
Due to the limitations associated with controlling the drone, several iterations were performed during development. For example, the team limited their mobility, much like controlling missiles in older games, but ultimately the inability to save or stop was held back. The goal: to reinforce the fact that you have a precise goal in mind through the start.
The Gonne-6: the new clutch weapon
On the other hand, it is the new secondary weapon “Gonne-Six” that could wreak havoc. The gun is special because it only has one ammunition : It fires a projectile that destroys pins and other elements within its explosion radius. It will replace the secondary weapon of several attackers such as Zero, Iana, Amaru, Gridlock, Finka, Lion and Dokkaebi.
There is a risk reward in this matter if you choose to give up your gun. Clearly, if you run out of ammo and leave in combat, it is not effective. However, we think this will be a sufficiently strong option. Therefore, we would like to tend to distribute them to operators whose utilization is a bit weak in order to improve their balance.
Even if the weapon did not present too important technical challenges, this applies to the side of the compensation. The team has tested many changes and it is expected that more changes will follow with the test.
They are used to playing with and behind the deployment signs, explains Jean-Baptiste. They found that the fact that the explosion was instantaneous did not give them time to react and run away from shields, and we would not have thought of that.
A few more anti-toxicity measures
In addition to these two new features that add a little spice to the shooter, it introduces Streamer Mode, which allows content creators to protect their identity and avoid stream sniping, and the reputation system will continue to be accurate. Initiated in the background, it will be visible later in the year by introducing rewards and penalties for players based on their score: a more than expected feature as it makes penalties more appropriate for each profile.
The sanctions that are imposed for toxicity do not yet go to the end of the logic as they do not necessarily follow the profile in the long term. For example, if Reserve Friendly Fire is activated, it will take place in this part, but it will not follow you in multiple parts explains Jean-Baptiste. With a reputation score that follows the profile, we can track over the long term. For someone who has systematic team kill behavior, we can activate a friendly fire by default at any time.
The first season of the sixth year, Crimson Heist, is already available on the PC test servers. The season will then be available on the live servers on March 16, and Flores can be played first by players using the Battle Pass..
