Rainbow Six Siege kicks off Year 8 with new operator Brava

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege continues to move along, as the game amazingly moves into Year 8. Operation Commanding Force hopes to maintain the game's momentum with a new Operator named Brava, as well as a handful of balance tweaks and the implementation of some long-awaited anti-cheat and anti-toxicity measures.

Brava hails from Brazil and brings along a variation of a classic Siege mechanic. She's an Attacker and her focus is on counter tactics. Her purpose isn't just to gather intel, but also to co-opt some of the opposing team's resources for her own squad. She can hold her own in a firefight, whether she's wielding a PARA-308 or CAMRS assault rifles or the USP40 or Super Shorty secondary weapons.

The Kludge Drone, Brava's signature gadget, is a variation of the various Siege drones. While Flores has a drone that's more focused on causing damage, Brava's Kludge Drone is more about disruption. Players can use the Kludge Drone to either destroy most of the opposing team's gadgets or outright take control of them. This can include surveillance cameras scattered throughout each level, but think bigger. Defenders that utilize electronic gadgets, like Aruni's Surya Gate or Maestro's Evil Eye cameras, run the risk of Brava totally taking control of those devices. The Kludge Drone isn't very durable, but if it can get into an area undetected, there's a chance that it could strip the opposing team of some crucial defenses.

With that said, players should beware of counters. Solis can see Kludge Drones coming with her SPEC-IO Electro-Sensor. Mute can totally jam the Kludge Drone with his Signal Disruptor. Mozzie's Pest Launcher will treat Brava's device like any other drone and not only obstruct it, but allow Mozzie to seize control of it. Of course, there's also the much simpler counter method of deploying Defenders that don't use electronics. There are plenty of them out there, like Thunderbird, Frost, and the brute force-minded Oryx.

Rainbow Six Siege's quality of life updates are especially noteworthy with Operation Commanding Force. Ubisoft Montreal is focusing on two different types of toxicity, first targeting players using mouse and keyboard on consoles. If a player is detected to be on a console with a mouse and keyboard connected, the game will issue a penalty that adds debilitating input lag. The idea behind the Mousetrap update is to create a sense of fair play and ensure that all console players are utilizing gamepads like everyone else.

Ubisoft Montreal also continues to take aim at the most toxic members of Siege's community. New penalties are being implemented for those who abuse the game's voice chat. Repeat offenders will have their voice chat privileges removed for longer and longer periods, only able to be heard by those who opt to unmute them.

With Rainbow Six Siege headed into its eighth year, there's naturally a greater challenge in recruiting new players. Ubisoft Montreal hopes to lower the barrier of entry by adding new Beginner Challenges and Specialty Challenges, which will teach newcomers the ins and outs of using each Operator. Completing these challenges will alllow those players to earn rewards, which will help them catch up to Siege's seasoned veterans.

Rainbow Six Siege will introduce Operation Commanding Force on the PC test servers starting next week. All PC, PlayStation, and Xbox users will be able to jump in on Tuesday, March 7.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?