Rainbow Six Siege outlines its plans for 2022

Azami stares into the camera with a knife in her hand

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Ubisoft has outlined more details about the changes coming to Rainbow Six Siege in 2022, which recently surpassed the "80 million player milestone".

As well as yesterday's Year 7 announcements of the first new map in three years, new permanent game modes including Team Deathmatch, and a new Operator, we now also know that Year 7 Season 2 will introduce a Belgian Operator and another exclusive Team Deathmatch map, this one set in Greece. Season 3’s Operator arrives from Singapore, bringing a new competitive map with them, whilst the final Operator of the year will reportedly hail from Colombia.

From tomorrow until March 21, the limited-time Year Pass and Premium Year pass will be available to buy. The former unlocks four season Battle Passes throughout the year - usually only available separately - and includes 14-day early access to new Operators. The latter offers the same along with a boost of 20 battle pass tiers, the early access to new Operators, "exclusive Exotic weapon skins, VIP credits, and more".

There's also been a concerted effort to tackle cheaters, too.

"Throughout Year 7, the development team will take steps towards addressing specific player behavior to further anti-cheat efforts introduced in Year 6 like the Reputation System," Ubisoft said in a statement. "Season 1 introduces improvements towards detecting griefing and player disconnects. Season 2 tackles players who misuse friendly fire through sanctions restricting reverse friendly fire as well as improving match cancellations."

There are also "several dedicated updates" for console players this year, too, including "aim control personalization, new controller input presets, and field of view settings". A shooting range is also being introduced in Year 7 to give new players "spaces to practice, train, and experiment without the pressure of a match". Another onboarding tool, Operator Tips, will help players get to know each Operator and their gadgets, and provide tips and tricks for how best to play Attacker or Defender Operators.

Only yesterday, Ubisoft unveiled what's heading to Rainbow Six Siege Year 7 Season 1, entitled Demon Veil. Not only does it introduce Azami, a new Japanese Operator, a new map, and a permanent Team Deathmatch game mode, but it also ushers in gameplay updates including Attacker Repick, universal sights, and more.

Alongside Azami, we also get an exclusive new map, Emerald Plains, set in Ireland, plus Attacker Repick, which enables Attacker Operators to change their Operator and/or loadout during the Preparation Phase.

"Y7S1 will also introduce a new Incentive Program," Ubisoft said at the time, "when players report issues on R6Fix and have their status reach 'Under Investigation', they will receive one reward per season, determined by the highest severity issue out of all their reports. Players on both the Test Server and the Live Server can report issues and have a chance to receive each season's reward during the following season's Test Server."

Read up on our new games 2022 guide for a complete look over all the other games launching over the next few months.

Vikki Blake is GamesRadar+'s Weekend Reporter. Vikki works tirelessly to ensure that you have something to read on the days of the week beginning with 'S', and can also be found contributing to outlets including the BBC, Eurogamer, and GameIndustry.biz. Vikki also runs a weekly games column at NME, and can be frequently found talking about Destiny 2 and Silent Hill on Twitter.