Rainbow Six Siege celebrates fifth birthday with Neon Dawn

On December 1, 2020, Rainbow Six: Siege celebrated its fifth birthday by dropping the Operation Neon Dawn patch on the live servers. The 60GB update for PC and 35.90GB update for consoles promises to lessen the strain on the memory of all platforms and adds next-gen compatibility. The huge update not only brings Aruni to the defender roster but a number of other changes to the game as well.

Operation Neon Dawn

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It's time to welcome the newest Operator to Team Rainbow. On December 1, play Operation Neon Dawn and find out what Aruni brings to the competition. pic.twitter.com/eqyKQbB2Ug

— Rainbow Six Siege (@Rainbow6Game) November 30, 2020

Operator Balancing

In addition to putting Operation Neon Dawn live on Rainbow Six Siege and adding Aruni, a variety of updates and balance changes will go through.

Hibana receives an exciting update to her X-Kairos pellets. Now able to choose between 2, 4, or 6 pellets, Hibana becomes more formidable since she can potentially open all bombsite hatches.

The new Jager rework sees his ADS gadget now has infinite ammo, despite a 10-second cooldown between each projectile destroyed. With the cooldown implemented into his gadget, its deniability is not as overpowered as it once was.

Echo receives a nerf to his Yokai drones with the invisibility stripped from them. Now, even as they attach to the ceiling, they will always be visible.

Ash now holds three breaching rounds as opposed to two from the previous seasons. However, each Breaching Round hits for 50 HP instead of 90 HP. This encourages players to use the breaching rounds for opening sightlines rather than taking down enemies. In addition to balancing her gadget, Ash can no longer bring stun grenades, which are replaced by a claymore.

Twitch’s loadout also receives a change. She will no longer have breach charges and instead hold stun grenades. This should greatly aid in her ability to support her entry fraggers.

Dokkaebi’s stun grenades will be replaced by frag grenades. Despite being an intel operator, she can now afford to play a little more aggressively with the info she receives.

On the defender side, Wamai will now carry only four Mag-Nets instead of five. Furthermore, there will no longer be an explosion when his ability destroys a projectile. His deployable shield is also switched out for impact grenades. This change should make him less overbearing on defense and encourage more aggressive plays.

Valkyrie’s deployable shield will also be replaced by impact grenades.

Skyscraper Rework

Rainbow Six Siege Operation Neon Dawn introduces the Skyscraper rework map to the players in this patch. An interesting change is making the bridge between the House and Restaurant on the second floor an interior room. The roof is also now accessible via rappel.

Neon Dawn Gameplay Changes

Neon Dawn brings some big changes to the defuser planting system. Bombsites now have an additional area around it to prevent players from accidentally dropping the bomb when they attempt to plant the defuser. Players can now directly plant the defuser below them, allowing for more possibilities when planting.

The runout timer also saw changes, reducing the time from 2 seconds to 1. Instead of a countdown, there is now a debuff icon in the HUD to alert players that they are in the detection zone.

Another quality of life change is that the player is now restricted from deploying a gadget over one that already exists. Meanwhile, bullet-proof gadgets, such as Mira’s Black Mirror, are now prone to projectiles that are meant to stick to surfaces.

One change that players have been asking for is the reduction of noise when they take damage.

?Neon Dawn Patchnotes Addendum ?

Y5S4 Operation Neon Dawn will be going live today! Platform times below.

Here are the additional changes that have come across from the Test Server.

You can read the full patch notes addendum here; ?https://t.co/jloqHs3QlW https://t.co/mR3lEoTLs0 pic.twitter.com/DRbbdbKdgi

— Rainbow Six Siege (@Rainbow6Game) December 1, 2020

Rainbow Six Siege Patches

But issues regarding the defuser are far from being fixed as more constantly pop up. Thankfully, the developers are working to provide even more quality of life changes during Rainbow Six Siege Year 5 Season 4. One change Ubisoft aims to improve is the interaction for picking up the defuser.

Battlepass and Store

In addition to a new Battlepass, which highlights the upcoming Six Invitational 2021, Ubisoft has released the Sixth Guardian program. This program aims to release limited-time bundles that spotlights an operator to raise money for charity.

Operation Neon Dawn marks a new era for Rainbow Six Siege as it enters its fifth year. Changes and improvements continue to arrive, in the hopes of making it better than it is now. The new operation, Aruni, and updates are live for players to check out now.

Written by Emily Tang

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