R6: Siege - Year 8 Season 1 Details Revealed

Ubisoft has just announced their plans for the new Rainbow Six Siege season, "Operation Commanding Force". The new season is expected to launch 7th March 2023.

New Operator

The new attacking operator will be Nayara "Brava" Cardoso. Her gadget is the "Kludge Drone", this drone can hijack any piece of defender equipment and turn it against them. For example, the drone can hijack defender traps and make them a danger to defenders. It can also hijack defender cameras, such as default cameras and Maestro's Evil Eyes, bulletproof cameras, etc.

Brava has access to the following weapons and equipment:

Primary weapons: PARA-308, CAMRS
Secondary weapons: USP40, Super Shorty
Equipment: Claymore, Smoke Grenade

Reload Cancelling

From the start of Operation Commanding Force, you'll no longer be able to cancel your reload once the magazine has been removed from your weapon. If you try to shoot your weapon once the magazine has been removed, you can only fire the single bullet which is currently chambered (if you have one).

Reputation Penalties for Voice Chat Abuse

Starting from the new season, continued voice chat abuse will land you with penalties. You'll be muted to others by default, teammates can only hear you if they manually unmute you.

Battlepass Update

The "Bravo Packs" you currently receive through the seasonal battlepass will be replaced with "Y8 Bravo Packs". Once you reach over tier 100 of the battlepass, you'll now receive "Bravo Tickets" rather than "Alpha Packs". Bravo Tickets can be used to redeem whatever item you desire from the Y8 Bravo Pack loot pool.

Rework to "Zero"

Zero's Argus Camera will no longer auto-expose itself to the opposite side of the wall it's fired upon. Zero will have to manually flip the camera to the opposite side of the wall, this allows Zero players more time to operate the gadget before it gets shot by an opponent.

Beginner Challenges

To reward new players, they can complete a series of challenges to receive "Newcomer Packs", these contain loot and renown. All players have access to these challenges.

PC players will be able to test all of these changes in the tactical test server next week.

What Else is Coming Throughout The Next Season?

The following changes will not be available at the start of Operation Commanding Force.

Mouse and Keyboard Restrictions For Console Players

R6 console players have been using a mouse and keyboard to gain an unfair advantage over controller players for many years now. Controller players have been begging Ubisoft to take action, a solution has now been announced.

If an input spoofing device (which enable mouse and keyboards to be used) is detected, that player will experience increased input lag. This means that when they move their mouse or press keys on their keyboard, those actions will take longer to show in-game. The input lag will gradually increase and it will be very hard for the mouse and keyboard player to react to situations in-game quickly. The input lag will gradually reduce once a controller is used rather than a mouse and keyboard.

Finka Elite Set

This has not been confirmed, however the silhouette from the graphic below suggests Finka.

Further Balances

No further details have been confirmed yet. We may get more details once the release notes have been revealed.

You can view the Year 8 Season 1 reveal below

The full Year 8 reveal is scheduled for tomorrow (Sunday 19th Feb 2023), we'll have more news for you shortly, follow us on Twitter @R6Tracker to stay tuned.