Rainbow Six Siege: Tougher difficulty, matchmaking and other changes made after closed beta

Ubisoft has revealed the changes it has made to tactical shooter Rainbow Six Siege following the closed beta that ran from late September to early October. Many relate to well-known problems, including the matchmaking, which led to the beta being extended twice.

"Our primary focus during this testing period was to figure out how we can improve matchmaking, and test our online infrastructure," reads the developer blog. "We also paid close attention to feedback in order to fine tune gameplay elements ahead of launch."

On matchmaking they wrote: "Thanks to all the data gathered during the Closed Beta, we have decided to remove some unnecessary complexities of the underlying matchmaking systems, while preserving our core values of matching players based on (not sorted by priority) their skill, account level, network performance and geographical location. We're not ready to release the details until a couple more tests have been run, but we've seen very significant improvements in matchmaking times."

Ranked matches have been given a shake up to reduce the HUD display – so there are no score, grenade, confirmed kill, reload or threat indicators and no outlines around teammates.

Operators (the term used to describe the individual soldiers, each with their own ability, which players can select) that could use a shield were extremely overpowered in the beta, so it's no surprise that has been addressed. When the operator is holding up the shield, they fire a pistol from the hip, so Ubisoft has reduced the efficiency of that. It is also affected when the player's shield is under fire.

Grips and laser sights will not have such a great effect as in the beta. Grips now reduce recoil by 25%, not 40%, and laser sights now offer a 23% accuracy bonus, not 40%. The difficulty level has also been altered across the board, making each difficulty ranking tougher. AI accuracy has been increased by 40% on normal, 20% on Hard and on Realistic enemies are now more accurate over long distances.

An irritating bug in the beta meant that explosions caused a player maximum damage whether they were caught in the middle of one or were just outside of the immediate blast radius. That has since been changed, so at a 5 metre distance, the player will no longer be hurt.

The length of time between rounds has also been reduced and, in unranked modes, the bomb placement will be randomised, preventing players from always choosing the much easier to defend basement on the Hereford Base map.

For a full overview of the changes made, head to Ubisoft's blog.

Rainbow Six Siege is set for release on PS4, Xbox One and PC on 1 December.

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