Operation North Star is the upcoming expansion of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six siege that features a brand new defending operator named Thunderbird who happens to be the 60th Operator of the game. Apart from the new defender, Operation North Star will also be bringing numerous in-game improvements, balancing tweaks, operator changes, and the much-anticipated Favela map rework. All of these and more will be available in season 2 of year 6 of Rainbow Six Siege. So, with that being said, let’s take an in-depth look at everything that Operation North Star has to offer.
RELEASE DATE OF OPERATION NORTH STAR
Operation North Star was officially unveiled on May 23rd, 2021 during the Six Invitational 2021 playoffs. It was announced that the new Operation will be officially released on 14th June 2021 for battle pass owners, and for everyone else on July 5th, 2021. Right now, the new expansion is already available on the test server of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege.
NEW OPERATOR: THUNDERBIRD
Hailing from Nakoda Territories of Saskatchewan, Mina Sky aka “Thunderbird” is the 60th Operator of the game, who joins the defending roster of team Rainbow. She is a three-speed, one-armor defender whose special gadget is the Kóna station. It is essentially an automated turret that is capable of firing healing shots which are somewhat similar to Doc’s stim pistol. Once this gadget is deployed, the Kóna station fires a healing shot of 30 health to any Operator (both defenders and attackers) within its radius. It can even heal through the holes as well, as long as the operator is within its radius and line of sight. If multiple operators are within its radius, then the operator with the lowest health gets the charge.
It can even overheal an operator, but the overhealed HP will slowly disappear over time. The Kóna station can also revive a down but not out operator, however, the operator will have to manually activate the charge.
After firing a single healing shot, the Kóna station undergoes a cooldown state of 12 seconds, and each station takes 3 seconds to fully deploy on the floor or surface. Thunderbird has a total of 3 Kóna stations for each round.
It must be noted here that the Kóna station has a lot of direct counters. Thatcher’s EMP grenades for example can disable the device for 10 seconds. Twitch’s shock drone, Kali’s LV Lances, and Zero’s Argus Cam lasers can destroy the healing station easily. Furthermore, IQ can detect the gadget and can destroy them manually, since a Kóna station is vulnerable to gunfire or melee strikes as well.
Coming to Thunderbird’s loadout, she has a choice between Spear .308 (assault rifle) or the Spas 15 (shotgun) for her primary weapon slot. Q929 pistol or Bearing 9 for her secondary weapon slot, and her secondary gadget consists of the impact grenades or the nitro cell.
THE NEWLY REWORKED FAVELA MAP
Much like the previous season of Rainbow Six Siege, Operation North star will not bring any new map to the game, instead, we will be getting the much-anticipated rework of the Favela map. The newly reworked map will have several notable modifications, the most prominent of which is that most exterior walls are now non-destructible. Favela was always seen as an attacker-heavy map due to its highly destructible environment which gave the attackers several entry points to breach, making it difficult for the defenders to hold their objective. By reworking the Favela, developers want to make the map more competitive and balanced for both sides.
Apart from the non-destructible walls, the ground floor stairway leading into the building has been removed. The two main entryways on the rooftops have been maintained, however, they have been renamed now.
Overall, the verticality, and the map’s asymmetrical environment has been preserved, while also bringing in several noteworthy changes to its exterior walls and interior map design which improves the balancing of the three maps.
GAMEPLAY BALANCING CHANGES
Season 2 of Year 6 is also bringing several significant balancing changes to the game. There are a lot of changes that will be implemented in the upcoming season that we won’t be covering here, so make sure to head over to ubisoft.com to check them out.
- Bullet Holes Exploit: The line of sight through bullet holes on destructible surfaces can no longer be exploited to create unfair gameplay scenarios.
- New Post-Death Sequence & Eliminated Operator Icons: A new post-death sequence will be added to the game, where once your operator is eliminated, the body is automatically replaced by a translucent operator icon. This has been done in order to remove any issues with dead bodies appearing differently to different players.
- Barrel Attachments: Notable changes have been brought to the flash hider and the compensator. Compensators will now only limit left and right weapon recoil, while flash hiders, on the other hand, will control the weapons vertical recoil.
- Scoreboard 2.0: A new scoreboard will be implemented from the next season. The scoreboard 2.0 not only looks aesthetically better, but it also displays the outcomes of each round as they occur, and the banned operators will also be listed as well (Ranked or Unranked).
- The auto-pickup of the diffuser will be removed, attackers will now have to manually pick the diffuser.
OPERATOR CHANGES
Smoke: The propagation system of the Smoke’s toxic gas (from gas grenades) will be reworked to ensure that the toxic smoke would spread more naturally and not through walls, floors, or ceilings.
Melushi: Melushi’s Banshee devices, when active, are now vulnerable to bullets, explosions, lasers, and melee attacks.
Mira & Maestro: The glass on Mira’s black mirror and Maestro’s evil eyes can now be shattered by melee attacks, making them impossible to see through, severely limiting their utilities. The same also applies to bullet-proof cameras as well.
Apart from these operators, Ash, Finka, Rook, Valkyrie, Vigil, and zero will also be receiving several tweaks. You can check them out on ubisoft.com
OPERATORS PRICE DECREASE
With the launch of Operation North Star, Zero’s price will drop to 20000 Renown or 480 R6 Credits, Amaru & Goyo will be available at 15000 Renown or 360 R6 Credits, and Maverick & Clash will be available for 10000 Renown or 240 R6 Credits.
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