Above: Stop shooting me and let me ram you!
The other dangerous aspect to pulling a surprise party wall blast on a room of unsuspecting armed operatives is that it makes Oryx a frightening, yet highly exposed, target to panic fire at. So like all things Rainbow Six: Siege, tactical nuance is the way to go when Oryx decides to throw himself through a wall.
Let’s not paint a picture of Oryx’s Remah Dash not having utility outside of blindly smashing into barriers like a drunken frat bro. The Remah Dash also works like a melee attack to knock operatives on the floor and put them in a hit-stun recovery state. This allows Oryx a small window of time to pull an offensive combo of a Remah Dash knockdown, into gunning down the flopped-over opponent. Using the Remah Dash in this way can also be an effective counter to shield based characters.
Finally, Oryx is one of the few characters that can smash trap doors and then use them to climb upward between floors. Oryx also doesn’t have to commit to a full climb, but can grab the frame of the trap door and peek over the lip to see who is in the immediate area. Or get his head blown off. Whichever!
Above: Iana, please. The camera is over here. Would you please just face the camera?!?
Iana
Joining the offensive side of the Rainbow Six: Siege battlefield is Iana, an aerospace operative that specializes in deception and reconnaissance. Iana’s special ability, the Gemini Replicator, creates a holographic clone of herself. Seasoned Rainbow Six: Siege players are probably thinking, “OK. Well, great? I guess?” Rainbow Six: Siege already has a defensive operator named Alibi, who can also spawn several holographic clones of herself all over the map.
The difference with Iana’s Gemini Replicator is that you can control the holographic clone.
When Iana spawns her holographic clone, the player’s view switches to the hologram’s First-Person perspective. The hologram controls exactly the same as normal Iana, with a few caveats: Like Rimmer from Red Dwarf, Iana’s holographic form can’t physically interact with anything. This means the hologram can’t break barricades or attack the enemy. The hologram is also incredibly fragile. One shot or melee attack destroys the hologram.
Above: Oh. So that was the real Iana.
The real Iana is also blind to her own surroundings while using hologram Iana. This means if the real Iana is discovered, she could be killed and never see it coming.
That hologram Iana can be indistinguishable from real Iana opened up a lot of really fun play possibilities. The most obvious use of the Gemini Replicator was running recon on a room or hallway that would otherwise be highly dangerous to lurk around. Even if hologram Iana draws enemy fire and is instantly destroyed, it has gained Iana’s team crucial strategic knowledge on enemy placement.
Iana’s hologram can also act as a decoy during an offensive push. On a few occasions during the hands-on session, we were successfully using Iana’s hologram to act as a false target, leading the charge into a fire fight and drawing the first few fatal shots away from friendly teammates.
One of the more advanced tactics, which I was the victim of multiple times, was using Iana’s hologram for deception. There were moments where I would spot an enemy Iana wandering around, and I had to question if what I spotted was a live Iana or a hologram Iana. If it’s a hologram, and it hasn’t seen me, maybe I should just let it go? Firing on it would give up my position.
But if it’s a real Iana, I just missed an opportunity to remove a significant member of the opposition.
Above: OMFG, I shot the hologram Iana again.
Yet again, if it’s the hologram, I could also be getting set-up to get flanked by the real Iana! In a game where winning moves are made with split-second decisions, having the wrong instinct can mean death. Especially if the Iana player is smart about matching their movement patterns and habits between both the real Iana and the hologram Iana.
For example, a ballsy and reckless real Iana may be able to pass as a hologram. Since players controlling hologram Iana may be more confident wandering around openly knowing that if they get shot, it’s just the hologram that dies.
This could work the other way as well, with a player using cautious movements with an Iana hologram, as if the real Iana is at stake, fooling players into thinking that’s the real Iana.
There’s a lot of potential play psychological tricks to experiment with here. It will be interesting to see how Iana’s hologram trickery will evolve.
Above: I don’t even know which Iana this is anymore.
Smaller stuff
The two new characters appearing in Operation Void Edge are really the meat of the Rainbow Six: Siege hands-on. There are some tweaks happening with the Oregon map, although since I just dove into Rainbow Six: Siege recently, I’m afraid I’m not sure what those changes specifically are (or their significance).
But that, in itself, is my takeaway. If there’s a time to finally pull Rainbow Six: Siege out of my “to play” void, it’s now. If you’re in a similar situation, these two new characters may make it worthwhile to dust it off and give the disc a spin.
