Rainbow Six Siege rocks the kasbah in Operation Wind Bastion tomorrow
Kaid's the bastion. Nomad provides the wind.
Operation Wind Bastion, Rainbow Six Siege's latest major update rolls out tomorrow. The servers go down for maintenance at 2pm GMT and spring back to life with renewed vigour at 3, if nothing goes terribly wrong. This update introduces a very scenic new map in the Moroccan mountains, and the usual Attacker/Defender pair of new operators. New characters Nomad and Kaid have been beaten fiercely with the nerf-bat just in time for release, so anyone who got used to them ruling the roost on the test servers may be a little disappointed when they launch.
Nomad's gadget, the Airjab, has been reworked into a more defensive tool, contradicting the guide video below. Previously the knockdown grenades could detonate in mid-air, or very shortly after impact with a wall, making them very powerful. Now they arm after hitting a surface, and take a full second and a half before priming. Useful if you have a plan worked out, but not quite the comically powerful defenestrator that it formerly was. Kaid's Electroclaws haven't seen any downgrades, but he can only carry two now instead of three. They did look pretty bulky, I guess.
The new sidearm on both of the new characters - a ferociously powerful scoped .44 magnum - has also seen some heavy tuning, greatly increasing its recoil. Landing a headshot is still very possible on that first hit, but it's not as easy to rapidly ventilate targets. Personally, I think I would have been happier if every character had been buffed instead of nerfing these two, but I guess that would begin a long spiral into power inflation. Before you know it, Siege would look like a gritty tactical version of Overwatch and now that I think about it, I would be entirely happy with that.
According to the patch notes, Mute, Clash and Smoke have received buffs, while Lesion and Zofia have been toned down a little. They're also tweaking how thrown items work, with every throwable weapon except for the Nitro Cell (classified as a 'heavy' throwable) now flying in the same predictable arc. Also, those handy area-of-effect indicators you see in the video above on Kaid and Nomad's gadgets will be applied to other characters in time, but not immediately. It is a planned feature, though, and should help players visualise exactly what they're going to be hitting.
Operation Wind Bastion goes live at 3pm GMT, Tuesday, December 4th. You can see the complete patch notes here.