The “Rainbow Six Siege” year 5 season changes have been announced. The new season starts in December operation Neon Dawn will feature a new operator, a map rework, and numerous operator balances.
Apha Tawanroong, code-named Aruni, is the newest operator to join Rainbow 6 Siege hailing from Thailand. Originally a member of the Royal Thai Police, she was forced into retirement when she and Team Rainbow operator nearly died in an explosion. Losing both her left arm and leg in the explosion, she returned to work as a private detective. Then in 2020, the founder of the private military organization, NIGHTHAVEN, invited Aruni into their ranks. As part of NIGHTHAVEN’s agreement, Aruni also became a Team Rainbow operative.
Aruni takes the role of a defender and has a strange kit for defense.
Her primary weapons are a choice between a submachine gun used by the Australian defender Mozzie and the Marksman rifle used by Korean attacker Dokkaebi. Her sidearm has been used by Team Rainbow’s Brazilian operators and by an operator from Morocco. Aruni is set to be the only defender with access to a marksman rifle.
Aruni’s melee attacks feature a different animation than other operators because of her prosthetics, but they also deal more damage to soft walls allowing her to create rotation holes with ease.
Her gadget is the Surya laser gate. It deploys over walls, doors, and windows to provide a laser field over it but will be temporarily deactivated if an attacker walks through it or a piece of utility such as a grenade or a drone is thrown through it. It deals with a sizeable amount of damage if an attacker touches it but will deactivate if a defender enters a close radius to the gate.
The Surya gate generator is indestructible but requires a cooldown after being deactivated and must be shot by a defender to reactivate. Her secondary gadget is a choice between a proximity alarm or barbed wire.
The map Skyscraper has been reworked. The second-floor balcony on one side of the building has been removed so attackers can no longer stand outside the windows and shoot the defenders. The indoor restaurant floor area has been reduced, the space has now been taken up with a cocktail and a sushi bar. Also added is a second-floor connection between two parts of the building. The bedroom and bathroom bomb site have been given an open space remodeling with a new destructible wall attacker can take advantage of.
Changes have been made to other operators to balance the meta. The alert timer for defenders running out of the building has been lowered from five seconds to one second.
GSG 9 operator Jager’s device is being given a cooldown between uses. His instantly Magpie deactivated two grenades and other thrown utility items, now the magpie will be inactive for ten seconds after disabling projectiles and have infinite charges.
Japanese operator Hibana will now be able to choose if she wants to shoot two, four, or six pellets from her breaching device, previously she was only able to shoot six pellets at once.
Japanese operator Echo will receive a nerf to his gadget. Previously his Yokai drone suctions itself to the ceiling, cloaks itself, acts as a camera, and shoots sonic bursts that disorient attackers. Now they no longer cloak themselves
FBI operator Ash will lose her flash grenades and gain access to a claymore mine and an extra breaching round to her gadget.
Dokkaebi will have her stun grenades replaced by frag grenades and CIA operator Zero will lose access to frag grenades and instead have a breach charge.
French attacker Twitch is getting stun grenades to replace her breach charge.
Navy Seal Valkyrie and Kenyan member of NIGHTHAVEN Wamai lose their deployable shields. Both operators are getting impact grenades as a replacement. Wamai will also have a reduced number of his deployable gadget.