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Rainbow Six Siege: Velvet Shell packages "red hot bootprints" and "nicely-framed murder holes" into a two-story party palace

Rainbow Six Siege: Operation velvet Shell has been fully detailed. Get the goss within.

Cover image for YouTube video

Rainbow Six Siege: Year 2 kicks off February 7 with Operation Velvet Shell, delivering two new operators and the Coastline map.

The map will be free to everyone immediately, while the two new operators will be exclusive to rainbow Six Siege Year 2 Season pass owners for a week. After that you can buy them with renown or R6 Credits.

As detailed in the video above, Mira is a low-speed, high-armour defender who brings a new SMG and the first secondary shotgun to Rainbow Six Siege, but can also use a primary shotgun. Her main trick is a bulletproof one-way mirror which can be deployed on destructible or reinforced walls, allowing those on her side to see through - but not the other way around.

The video above describes this as a "nicely-framed murder hole" The mirror can be blown up or the wall nearby breached were possible, but otherwise it can't be touched from the far side. Mira's teammates, however, can shoot a gas canister to knock the mirror down and shoot through. That should have some interesting effects on how Rainbow Six Siege players use reinforced walls.

The new attacker is called Jackal. He's a medium speed, medium armour type who can use SMGs, shotguns and assault rifles. His special trick is the ability to see footprints (with one exception), making him a strong counter to Rainbow Six Siege's more roam-happy operators.

Prints can be scanned, revealing the enemy player's location to everyone on Jackal's team - and unlike the pings caused by Rainbow Six Siege's cameras, there's no way to turn this off once you've been tagged. The prints are also colour coded to indicate age, and the "red hot bootprints" will lead Jackal to nearby foes.

Coastline, the new map coming to Rainbow Six Siege is a "two story party palace". Attackers spawn by the pool, the ruins or in front. It's organised with a central courtyard, and some of its rooms are colour coded for easy comms.

Cover image for YouTube video

Other Operation Velvet Shell and Year 2 updates

Operation Velvet Shell also delivers new weapons skins, an Elite set for Rook, and a number of UI and menu updates for Rainbow Six Siege. ou'll see this immediately in the Operation Velvet Shell update, when you can access menus while queueing for matches.

During the Six Invitational celebrations, Ubisoft said Rainbow Six Siege Year 2 will include a major overhaul to matchmaking server stability. At present, Rainbow Six Siege uses dedicated servers for matchmaking but runs other online services through peer-to-peer - and if one system goes down, they all go down, with matchmaking being the one everyone gets upset about. Ubisoft will bring all those secondary online services onto dedicated servers one by one, which should prevent future disasters.

Ubisoft also said it is planning to improve Rainbow Six Siege's hit detection, and to overhaul the loot system to reward players with cosmetics regularly, rather than funnelling people towards the cash store or a long, long grind.

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Brenna Hillier avatar

Brenna Hillier

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Based in Australia and having come from a lengthy career in the Aussie games media, Brenna worked as VG247's remote Deputy Editor for several years, covering news and events from the other side of the planet to the rest of the team. After leaving VG247, Brenna retired from games media and crossed over to development, working as a writer on several video games.

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