Rainbow Six Siege Year 5: Everything we know about the operators, map reworks, and battle passes

Excited about Rainbow Six Siege Year 5? It's been more than four years since Ubisoft launched its tactical FPS, and it only continues to grow. With a roster of 50 operators and counting, Year 5 is something of a transitional year in terms of new Siege content. In exchange for fewer operators and no new maps, Ubi is investing more time improving what Siege already has, Operation Health-style. Then in Year 6, the studio is building on this strategy with half the usual new operators.

Fewer operators might be a bummer for some, but there's a lot of exciting stuff on the horizon in 2020. Here's everything we know about Rainbow Six Siege Year 5 so far.

When does Year 5 Season 3 of Rainbow Six Siege begin?

Rainbow Six Siege Year 5 Season 2, Operation Steel Wave, has only just begun, so we're still far out from the reveal of Season 3. If Ubisoft follows its usual schedule, Season 3 will begin sometime in late August or early September 2020.

Who are the Rainbow Six Siege Year 5 operators?

As Ubisoft transitions away from the eight-operators-per-year model, Year 5 cuts new faces down to six. Seasons 1 and 2 each have two operators while seasons 3 and 4 will only have one.

We've already been introduced to Year 5's first four operators and know a great deal about the last two, thanks to leaks. Here's a full rundown of their abilities and loadouts.

Oryx

• 2 Speed 2 Armor
• Ability: Remah Dash
• Primary weapons: MP5 SMG, SPAS-12
• Secondary weapons: Bailiff 410, USP40
• Secondary gadgets: Barbed Wire, Bulletproof Camera

Oryx is a new kind of roamer with superior mobility throughout the map. His Remah Dash lets him charge through soft walls (at the cost of ten health) and barricades like they're made of tissue paper. It's immensely satisfying to use, but even more useful is his ability to jump up and climb through hatches. As a defender, he can roam in the prep phase opening hatches that let him quietly rotate around the map later on.

Iana

• 2 Speed 2 Armor
• Gadget: Gemini Replicator
• Primary weapons: ARX2000, G36C
• Secondary weapon: MK1 9mm
• Secondary gadgets: Smoke Grenades, Frag Grenades

Iana is an intel-gathering trickster. Her Gemini Replicator spawns an exact clone of herself that can be controlled by her like a normal operator for 15 seconds, like a drone that always recharges after being destroyed. 

But her real power comes from how Gemini tricks enemies. The hologram looks, sounds, and moves just like the real Iana. With some cleverness, you can fool enemies into thinking you're approaching north when you're actually heading east.

Ace

• 2 Speed 2 Armor
• Gadget: SELMA Aquatic Breacher
• Primary weapons: AK-12, M1014
• Secondary weapon: P9 Handgun
• Secondary gadgets: Smoke grenades, Breaching charges

Ace, Siege's newest hard breacher, trades fiery explosives for water-powered drills. Ace matches Hibana in terms of versatility, but his SELMA breaching capsules come out on top in ease-of-use. In a pinch, his SELMAs can also be used to destroy defender gadgets or breach soft walls safely from a distance.

Melusi

• 3 Speed 1 Armor
• Gadget: Banshee Noise Generators
• Primary weapons: T-5 SMG, Super 90
• Secondary weapons: RG15
• Secondary gadgets: Impact grenades, Nitro cell

Melusi is a proficient roamer with a gadget meant to slow down attackers and waste time. Her Banshees slow enemies to a meandering walk when they're within its large radius, and it can only be destroyed by explosive, EMP, or melee hit. Whether attackers decide to take the movement penalty or blow it up, they'll make a lot of noise doing it.

The leaks

S3/4 Operator Gadgets / Abilities from r/Rainbow6

We're only two seasons into Year 5, but a bevy of extensive leaks have already given us a good idea of what to expect for the rest of the year. We have operator names, gadgets, weapons, and map layouts. That's a whole lot, but here are the highlights.

Scout—Season 3 attacker

Scout appears to be the Splinter Cell crossover operator that Ubisoft has been teasing since February. In the leaked video, we can see that he carries a handheld camera launcher.

The cameras themselves can be fired into surfaces and used like Valkyrie's Black Eye devices, but the gadget icon and previous leaks also suggest that they can drill into a wall and possibly see what's on the other side. On top of this, we can see the camera firing what appears to be a laser similar to Maestro's bulletproof cameras. Going off the footage, Scout seems to fill the roles of intel gatherer with the chance of sneakily destroying defender gadgets like Twitch.

Even cooler is that Scout is bringing a new assault rifle to Siege, the SC3000K. The weapon is clearly an homage to the SC series of rifles that Sam Fisher uses throughout the Splinter Cell series. He looks like a ton of fun.

Aruni—Season 4 defender

Aruni (again, another possible codename) appears to be Siege's Thai operator coming in Season 4. In the video above, we get an extensive look at her weapons, gadget, and special bionic arm.

Her main gadget, possibly called the Surya Gate, is a small projector device that emits a laser grid over doorways, walls, and possibly windows. In the video, we see the laser grid shut off when Aruni approaches it and come back on as she leaves. We don't know how much damage walking into the barrier deals, but attackers will likely need to destroy the projector to comfortable pass the barrier.

Aruni's arm seems to function as a secondary passive ability. Her standard melee strike is replaced by a robo-arm-powered punch that can create shotgun-sized holes in soft walls or break barricades in a single strike. She's also the first defender equipped with a legitimate DMR on defense: the Mk14EBR.

Rainbow Six Siege Year 5 roadmap

As for what we know for sure about the rest of 2020, that mostly comes from Ubisoft's Year 5 roadmap it shared back in February. Season 4's operator will definitely come from Thailand. According to leaks, this is Aruni.

As for Season 3, while Ubi shrouding the origin of this operator in mystery, we have a good idea from leaks that this will be a Splinter Cell-themed crossover operator, codenamed Scout.

Rainbow Six Siege Year 5 map reworks

As it did for Siege Year 4, Ubisoft announced all of the maps receiving a rework in Year 5 ahead of time. First up was the Oregeon rework in Void Edge, and we've just received the House rework as of Operation Steel Wave. Thanks to the big leaks outlined above, we also have early looks at the reworks for Skyscraper and Chalet, coming in Season 3 and 4 respectively.

S3 Skyscraper Rework from r/Rainbow6

S4 Chalet Rework from r/Rainbow6

• Season 1: Oregon
• Season 2: House (Casual rework)
• Season 3: Skyscraper
• Season 4: Chalet

A new Arcade mode is on the way

Ubi is also implementing an Arcade playlist in Year 5, where it can try out smaller, experimental modes vastly different from standard Siege. The first test for this was Golden Gun, a one-shot Deagle mode inspired by GoldenEye 64. Leaks suggest that the next mode is Attrition, a standard bomb mode where teams are locked out of operators after playing them once.

We've only seen one Arcade mode so far, but Golden Gun was a lot of fun while it lasted. It's nice to see smaller modes meant to be brief, throwaway things to mix up Siege's serious gameplay.

A replay system is in the works

This is a feature long-requested by fans. A proper replay system will allow players to review matches from any perspective. That's useful not only for saving clutch moments or helping to improve skill, but also for anti-cheating. It's hard to tell when someone is cheating in Siege, but being able to save the match and watch from their perspective is huge.

Ubi originally planned to release Replays in the first half of 2020, but the transition to working from home slowed work enough that it's been pushed back to sometime in the back half of the year.

Ping 2.0 gives normal pings more context

Another feature being tested in Year 5 is Ping 2.0, an upgrade to Siege's normal ping button that marks specific gadgets when aiming at them. As you can see in the gif above, you can ping traps or hazards for teammates without the need of voice callouts.

Rainbow Six Siege Year 5 battle passes

After the success of Siege's Road to S.I. battle pass, Ubisoft is diving head first into making more. In Year 5, every season will have a unique battle pass that unlocks premium cosmetics, currency packs, alpha packs, and new Siege lore.

Major operator reworks are coming, too

Ubisoft isn't pumping out fewer operators in 2020 for no reason: the developer wants to spend a lot more time and energy on improving existing ones. The prime example? The meme himself: lord Tachanka.

Tachanka has a storied history as the worst operator in the game. Light tweaks are out of the question: Ubi is taking drastic measures. New Tachanka can carry his LMG detached from its mount and also carries a flame grenade launcher that denies areas in a similar way to Smoke and Goyo.

Ubi believe this is what players should consider a 'rework' moving forward: a significant shift to an operator's identity and role in the game. For smaller refinements, they are more like 'tweaks'.

According to game director Leroy Athanassoff, Clash is a "top candidate" for a rework as well. We don't know if she'll get balancing attention she needs anytime during Year 5, but we live in hope.