Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege is a team-based first person shooter than relies heavily on tactics and player communication. A somewhat steep learning curve prevents it from having pick up and play accessibility, but what it lacks in that area makes up in providing a rewarding tactical experience for those who are willing to invest the time and learn all the nuances of its gameplay.
A newcomer to the game may be frustrated early on by the game’s no respawn feature and how death can seemingly come from anywhere at anytime, but a smart newcomer will study all the ways veteran players are killing and start thinking of ways to incorporate their tricks and strategy.
In order to keep this multiplayer only shooter fresh, new content is being rolled under the nameOperation Blood Orchid. This new content will be available for Season Pass Holders on August 29 and everyone will have access starting September 5.
The setting for this new content is a theme park, which may seem like an odd location for a tactical shooter, but the architecture and layout of such a place lends itself well to the environmentally destructive gameplay and can present the players with interesting angles to take their opponents out of commission.
Operation Blood Orchid brings new content along with some improvements to Rainbow Siege Six.The visuals and lighting have been improved to provide greater clarity to the action that is going on screen.
When viewing side by side comparisons, the environments look sharper and there is a clearer sense of differentiation between the various background objects. The lighting effects have been reworked where visual acuity is improved by the light sources no longer bleeding light into different directions that obscures more than it illuminates, leading to more accurate shooting.
There are three new characters introduced in Operation Blood Orchid that join the already heavily varied cast of selectable characters. The characters in Rainbow Six Siege have always been a diverse group with different strengths and specialties and this new batch of options does not deviate from that philosophy.
Ying is an attacker that specializes in rushing and flashbang grenades, while Lesion is a defender that specializes in trapping and GU mines.
Ela Bosak is a defense operator who is a trapper/roamer and specializes in proximity concussion mines. These new additions seem to fit in nicely with the current roster as far as their unique strengths and limitations are concerned but adding more playable options does increase the potential for developing different strategies.
In addition to new characters, Operation Blood Orchid brings additional features to the game. A new map and three new operations have been added, along with two new regions in Latin America and Asia.
Rainbow Six Siege was not suffering from a weapon deficit, but new weapons were added in the form of cluster gas grenades and toxic mines. These types of weapons may have been banned by the Geneva Convention, but thankfully they have no jurisdiction over what sort of instruments of death can be utilized in video games.
The prize pool has doubled in size and eSports themed in game items will be added to encourage and support the continued professional level of competitive playing of Rainbow Siege Six.
Operation Blood Orchid looks like it will fulfill the goal of extending the life of Rainbow Siege Sixwithout drastically changing the core what attracted its fans in the first place. Part of the base game’s appeal is working as a team to learn how to best navigate the different maps and use positioning and cover to your advantage.
Adding new locations, characters and weapons is a nice way to throw a curve ball to the players who have otherwise mastered the game by providing new areas to explore and characters to master, so Operation Blood Orchid looks like it will give fans reason to be excited.
