Rainbow Six Siege Operation Dread Factor Offers New Operator Fenrir, Map Rework, More Today

Rainbow Six Siege Year 8, Season 2, entitled Operation Dread Factor, arrives today. The update has been available on test-servers for a while, but it’s available to everyone now. The headline addition for this season is the new Swedish Defender, Fenrir. He’s essentially Rainbow Six Siege’s version of the Scarecrow, as he wields mines that unleash fear gas that will impair your opponent’s vision. Ubisoft Montreal have also cooked up a rework of the Consulate map, a revamp of the Shooting Range, and more. You can check out a new animated teaser trailer for Rainbow Six Siege Y8S2, below.

Here's a bit more information on new Defender, Fenrir…

“Fenrir is a Swedish Operator who will be joining the roster of Rainbow Six Siege defenders as part of the Redhammer squad, the explosive unit led by Thermite. His loadout includes a choice of the MP7 submachine gun or the SASG-12 shotgun for his primary weapon, as well as the Bailiff 410 revolver as his secondary and either a bulletproof camera or barbed wire.”

Unique Abilities

• F-NATT Dread Mine - a throwable device that sticks to walls, so it can be hidden in places where fear can fester. Fenrir comes equipped with 5 mines and can activate 3 at a time anywhere on the map.

If you’d like to know more about Operation Dread Factor, you can check out the full patch notes here. The update will include some balance changes, including the new Observation Blocker gadget, and some tweaks from Grim and Thunderbird.

New Gadget: Observation Blocker

“The Observation Blocker is an intel-denial gadget that projects a digital barrier which blocks the line of sight for opponent drones and Observation Tools so they can't spot Operators and devices.”

Grim

• Added Baliff as a secondary weapon.
• Added Hard Breach Charge.
• Launcher: Reduced equip time to 1s (from 1.1).
• Launcher: Increased rate of fire to 70 rpm (from 40).
• Projectile: Activation time reduced to 0.4s (from 1).
• Projectile: Vulnerable to bullets, laser, and melee damage.
• Area: Duration increased to 16s (from 8).
• Area: Radius increased to 4.6m (from 3.6).
• Area: Detection system changed to body (from head).
• Decay: Reduced duration to 4s (from 9).
• Decay: Time between pings normalized to 1s (from 1/3/9).

Thunderbird

• Removed Impact Grenades and Nitro Cell.
• Added Barbed Wire and Bulletproof Camera.
• Kona Station: Healing per shot reduced to 20hp (from 30).
• Kona Station: Cooldown reduced to 15s (from 35).

Rainbow Six Siege can be played on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, and PS5. Operation Dread Factor is available as of today (May 30).

Written by Nathan Birch