Rainbow Six Siege unveils its Year 11 roadmap, featuring Solid Snake, and an iconic face and map from R6 Vegas

Ubisoft has lifted the lid on its Rainbow Six Siege Year 11 roadmap, and it's promising to be one of the biggest years ever for the tactical FPS. The opening story trailer reveals that, two years after the shutdown of Rainbow, a new threat calls an old face back into action - Bishop, the protagonist of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2. There's plenty more besides that to look forward to as new creative director Joshua Mills, his predecessor Alex Karpazis, and live content director Christopher Budgen share everything coming in 2026, including the arrival of Solid Snake and a trip to the legendary Calypso Casino.

"I would be lying if I didn't say I was nerding out about Bishop and what his role will be in the future of Rainbow", Mills remarks. "That's Year 11: more Siege, more often, and back to our roots." The focus for the coming year of Rainbow Six Siege is 5v5 and a continued emphasis on ranked play, Budgen explains. In service of this is what the team is dubbing 'Ranked 3.0', coming in Season 2. Placement matches are back at the start of each season, and champion divisions will pit the best of the best against one another.

At the peak of it all is the legend division, which will be limited to solo queue and require you to reach champion rank before you can take part. This is coming in Season 3, and will also make use of the new layer of Rainbow Six Shieldguard that implements the system-level Windows Secure Boot feature for additional protection, as Ubisoft continues its fight against cheaters and toxicity. Additionally, Season 2 will introduce official mouse and keyboard support for consoles, allowing players to opt in to joining the PC matchmaking pool; Mills emphasizes that anyone trying to get around this "will be banned".

You can look forward to both 1v1 and 3v3 arcade modes that will appear in Season 1 and Season 3 respectively. "If this is as big as we think it is, we'll support it based on the reception, and see if the demand for a ranked experience is there too", Karpazis adds. Ubisoft has also introduced a new social hub, designed as the place to squad up with friends or recent players. It's still a work in progress and won't be here until Season 4, but Mills says it "marks a new beginning of what we envision for social interactions in Siege".

Rainbow Six Siege Year 11 Season 1 is 'Operation Silent Hunt', and kicks off on Tuesday March 3. It's all themed around the arrival of the iconic Solid Snake from the Metal Gear Solid series, who's voiced here by David Hayter. Snake as an operator has access to a handheld Soliton Radar that shows an immediate top-down view of his surroundings, with colored markers indicating if there are surveillance cameras or enemy operators nearby. It uses a rechargeable battery, and can be activated to directly pinpoint the location and facing of nearby threats, although they'll be alerted that they're being watched.

Snake's primary weapons of choice are the F2 (complete with new grips) and the PMR90A2, while his pistol is the new Tacit .45. However, he's also bringing his classic 'on-site procurement' approach to proceedings. He starts with just one use of an attacker-type grenade, gadget, or breach charge, but can scavenge from pouches dropped by dead operators, selecting exactly what he wants to obtain from each pickup.

In accordance with Snake joining the roster, Season 1 is themed around 'entry and roaming'. Skopós is getting upgrades to her shells, which now move faster, hit harder, and are capable of breaking soft destructible surfaces with a punch. She can also switch between the shells faster, with the cooldown dropped to just half a second between swaps. Among the other operators seeing changes for the start of Year 11 are Ela, Alibi, Amaru, Ying, and Flores.

A new 'Redacted' event brings additional familiar faces from Metal Gear to the fray, with exclusive skins resembling Meryl, Gray Fox, and Revolver Ocelot all making an appearance. If you're after more special cosmetics, Ubisoft is introducing new, colored variants of the elusive Black Ice design. Year 11 Season 1 will also be the final run for Dual Front, and it's getting an MGS twist for its grand finale, including the opportunity to pick up all past rewards that have ever appeared in the mode.

In Season 2, we'll be getting a new map inspired by Rainbow Six Vegas, the Calypso Casino. It'll arrive in ranked on day one, and you can expect "slot machines, blackjack tables, and plenty of easter eggs" to discover. Season 2's operator remaster will be Dokkaebi, who will get "the same kind of impactful change we saw with Thatcher". She'll no longer be able to target all hostiles at once, instead taking a more personal approach. Mills also notes that there will be "no more early access on weapons" and that they'll be available to all from the get-go.

Season 3 will see the introduction of "a brand-new, long-term progression system", Operator Mastery. This will mark your progression with each individual character, earning you ways to show off your proficiency with the various members of the roster. A new defender is coming in Season 3 that acts as a counter to shield users, with a weapon that's teased as being capable of blasting straight through their protective barriers like a breach charge.

A new testing grounds playlist is planned for Year 11 Season 4 that will include some new strategic options, such as half reinforcements. "This is big, and we need your opinion before deploying it to the game," Karpazis remarks. Hostage mode is also being reworked, and the team's exploring "how to bring it back into ranked play". The Grand Larceny event is making its comeback in Season 4, along with a drone secondary gadget for attackers, another operator remaster, and a cross-operator weapon.

"Year 11 is about strengthening the core 5v5 experience", Mills concludes. Looking towards the future, the team at Ubisoft has one more promise - starting in Year 12, it'll be returning to a rollout of four new operators, one per season. That might be some way off, but there's certainly no shortage of additions to keep us busy in the meantime.