Rainbow Six Siege, the popular multiplayer tactical shooter game from Ubisoft, is ready to wrap up its eighth year with a new season called Operation Deep Freeze. The season was officially announced on February 18th, 2023, during the Six Invitational 2023, and its name was unveiled on November 1st, 2023, at the BLAST R6 Major Atlanta.
Operation Deep Freeze will introduce a new defender operator from Portugal, a new map, along with some core gameplay improvements and reworks, such as a new shield mechanics rework, a new battle pass, a new in-game event, and a new marketplace where players can trade skins and cosmetics.
The new operator, called Tubarão, is a member of the Portuguese Special Operations Group (GOE). He is described as a “cold-blooded hunter” with medium speed and medium health. Tubarão’s loadout includes the MP5SD submachine gun, the SPAS-12 shotgun, the P226 MK 25 pistol, the Nitro Cell, and the Zoto canister.
The new map, caller Lair, is built into a massive cavern and has numerous entry points on each floor, including a top-floor spawn point, so Defenders will have to make the most of the Prep Phase to prepare for aggressive entry. Players will be able to load into matches on the Lair map at season launch through the Discovery Playlist.
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There’s also the new Map Run mode, which is a new training mode designed to help players learn the names and locations of key rooms through the maps of Rainbow Six Siege. These names are crucial tools in communication and map awareness, and you can practice learning these callouts in two Map Run variants.
Another new training mode coming in Operation Deep Freeze is Versus AI. This pits you and your teammates against five AI Defenders who will reinforce walls, use unique gadgets, and play power positions as you try to attack the site.
Then, the Operation Deep Freeze update for Rainbow Six Siege is also introducing a major update for frag grenades. Players will no longer be able to cook grenades (i.e. pull the PIN and hold the grenade in-hand so as to better control when and where it explodes). Frags will have a standard fuse timer that begins the moment the player throws them, and shortens by about one second when the frag hits a surface.
Lastly, there’s a new marketplace, for which players can register as it will launch in beta phase first. Marketplace will allow the players to trade skins and cosmetics with each other using R6 credits. The marketplace will run on a peer-to-peer system, where the players can list their items for sale or browse the items for purchase. The marketplace will also have some filters, such as rarity, quality, price, and popularity, to help the players find the items they want.