Thanks to the rigorous sleuthing skills of Rainbow Six Siege players, the game's Italian operators may have leaked.

After the release of Operation Chimera, players dug into the game files and discovered a short clip with some placeholder text. This text seemed to reveal Rainbow Six Siege's two new upcoming operators: Italian special forces soldiers Alibi and Maestro.

The leak was exposed on the game's subreddit on Tuesday. Previous file-digging revealed some potential abilities for the new operators, with allusions toward 'decoys' and 'holograms'.

This idea of projected images and holographic distractions seems especially fitting for Alibi, given her cheeky name. However, very little is known about Maestro. But based on that ammo slung over his shoulder, it seems safe to say he will be able to deal some heavy damage.

Obviously, the word 'placeholder' is used in the asset, so there's a chance the names of these operators aren't set in stone. Ubisoft is likely to make an official announcement about the new operators soon.

After the new Operation Chimera update, Rainbow Six Siege also experienced an increase in overall fan approval and reached an unprecedented peak concurrent player count for the game (176,856). The game is only two years old, but Steam Charts data indicate that the player count is now triple of what it was six months ago.

This explosion in popularity for the game may be due to the introduction of new elements to the gameplay with the update, alongside two new operators and a co-op zombie mode called Outbreak. It stands to reason that many players, both new and old, can be coming to Rainbow Six Siege due to these new features.

The allure of yet two more new operators could bring even more joining and returning players to Rainbow Six Siege for Year 3, which is looking to be a promising year for the game's development. This doesn't mean, however, that the game hasn't faced recent challenges.

This is a highly competitive game and as such has its fair share of toxicity within its community. To combat player toxicity, Rainbow Six Siege community developers have implemented an "improvement on the system we have been using to ban players that use racial and homophobic slurs or hate speech in-game."

Toxic gaming has been a hot topic in the industry recently, and with the rise in popularity for Rainbow Six Siege, it will be interesting to see how the game balances its commitment to new content and its goals for a positive community.