Rainbow Six Siege Year 4: operators, release date, roadmap – all the latest details
Rainbow Six Siege Year 4 is bearing down on us with the promise of another eight meta-defining operators, new maps, CTUs, and plenty more. After last year kicked off with the limited time PvE event, Outbreak, there is also a slim chance that Year 4 will deliver more than new gadgets and guns.
Interestingly, we heard about Outbreak and the roadmap for last year long before its release date – there was even a lengthy ARG to build hype for the zombie-slaying game mode. However, Ubisoft Montreal is yet to release any information on the upcoming year of Rainbow Six Siege updates.
Fortunately, the dedicated Rainbow Six Siege community, the odd easter egg, and some leaks give us a good starting point as to what to expect from Year 4 of the tactical multiplayer shooter. Already we know of a couple of upcoming gadgets that future Rainbow 6 team members will use, not to mention a potential nod to an upcoming CTU or map location.
Here is everything we know about Rainbow Six Siege Year 4, from new gadgets to when you can expect an official announcement.
Rainbow Six Siege Year 4 leaks
Rainbow Six Siege has become notoriously leaky over the past couple of years, with significant details surfacing well ahead of every new season. Rainbow Six Siege Year 4 is no different, with a few substantial leaks already.
The earliest Year 4 leak was a datamine of a Wind Bastion update, which revealed new gadget names for upcoming operators. The gadget names are ‘Drone Hacker’ and ‘Trax’, and the Redditor who posted them has successfully predicted several weapons and gadgets for previous seasons using the same method.
As for the gadgets themselves, it’s hard to suggest what exactly they might do. Drone Hacker sounds like a device for defenders that allows them to seize control of the attacking team’s recon drones, but Trax is much harder to fathom.
The second Year 4 leak should be taken with a good pinch of salt. The leaked image purports to be of the Year 4 Season 1 main menu screen and would therefore show off two upcoming Australian operators. The same Resetera user who posted this also shared another image of the Trax gadget and a description of the two operators.
Rainbow Six Siege Year 4 operators
Each new year of Rainbow Six Siege promises to add eight new operators across four seasons and counter terrorist units, most of which are based on real-life special forces teams like the GIGR and GROM. Ubisoft is yet to announce what nations will be represented in Year 4, but we do have a couple of clues to go on.
The first and most obvious place to start is by looking at all of the CTUs currently in the game to see what major special forces groups are not listed. For example, Rainbow Six Siege is yet to feature Pakistan’s SSG, Australia’s SASR, Russia’s Alpha Group, Israel’s Sayeret Matkal, or Austria’s GEK Cobra units.
Characters from previous Rainbow 6 games have had backgrounds in these special forces branches, so it seems inevitable that Year 4 will include at least one of these teams.
In the Briefing Room of the new map, there’s a map of Australia being shown on the projector. Possible hint towards Australian operators? from Rainbow6
Australia seems the most likely, with Timothy Hanley of Rainbow Six and Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield fame hailing from Australia’s revered SASR team. There’s even a subtle nod to Australia in the most recent Rainbow Six Siege map, Fortress, which has a map of the country projected on a wall. This is similar to one of the ARG steps included in the run-up to Outbreak.
Rainbow Six Siege Year 4 release date
It’s become very easy to predict the launch date for each upcoming season of Rainbow Six Siege so we’re fairly confident we know when the fourth year of operators will commence. Typically, a new Operation is launched on Test Servers a few days after being revealed at a major Siege esports tournament. The Six Invitational 2019 is the next big event in the Siege esports calendar, so our best bet for TTS featuring Year 4 Season 1 content is just after that.
The Grand Final of the Six Invitational 2019 takes place on February 17, so it’s likely that the first TTS of Year 4 will go live the following Tuesday on February 19. The testing period usually runs for two weeks before the final update goes live on PC, so it’s likely that the Rainbow Six Siege Year 4 release date is March 5, 2019.
Rainbow Six Siege Year 4 roadmap
Ubisoft is yet to share their Year 4 roadmap for Rainbow Six Siege, but we do know from the Year 4 Pass details that we’ll be getting eight operators as part of Year 4. This confirms that there will be four seasons in Year 4 – some expected Ubisoft to reduce this to three after some controversial operator releases across Year 3, but this doesn’t appear to be the case.
