Ubisoft has finally shown off gameplay from the new "zombie mode" of Rainbow Six Siege, running through the Outbreak event in great detail during the 2018 Six Invitational. Rainbow Six Siege fans have been waiting months to see how Ubisoft would reveal its first post-launch player-versus-environment cooperative experience, which features both a cohesive storyline, cutscenes, and 3 separate co-operative missions.

As detailed by Rainbow Six Siege technical director Irvin Dos Reis, a parasitic outbreak occurs in the town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, where a Soviet capsule launched 40-50 years ago re-enters the Earth's orbit and crash lands in a local junkyard. The entire town has succumbed to the infestation, with only Team Rainbow preventing the outbreak from spreading to neighboring towns and beyond. The Outbreak event will only run for 4 weeks and is free to play for those who own Rainbow Six Siege, though players might be tempted to splash some cash on some cosmetic items that are only available during the event.

To begin with, Outbreak will feature 3 operators going up against 5 different new enemy types: grunts, breachers, rooters, smashers, and apex enemies. While each of the new 3 maps will be chock full of grunts and breachers, the latter three enemies will make appearances in what the Ubisoft development team calls "moments" - both pre-determined and dynamic events that trigger the tougher opposition to appear.

Grunts are the typical cannonfodder enemy that rely on strength in numbers and can tear down walls with their claws. When players are detected, they should expect grunts to show up en masse. Breachers are explosive enemies that, as the name implies, can breach through reinforced walls and damage players with explosions. They're designed to force players not to stick too close to one another, but blowing them up when they're surrounded by other monsters is also a viable way to hurt multiple enemies at once.

Rooters teleport around the map, launching spindles of underground needle-like roots that get players stuck to the ground. It has a bloodlust mode when it goes in to kill trapped players, making it a highly dangerous enemy. The Apex, as the name implies, is the top of the monster food chain. It avoids players, but that doesn't mean it isn't a threat:  it launches Echo-like blasts to disorient players, dangerous smoke attacks that cause massive damage, and even spawns dangerous grunt-like enemies that are resistant to bullets. Speaking of, the Smasher is a giant mix of Sledge and Montagne. Bullets will do nothing to the Smasher's front, forcing teams to cooperate and attempt to find its weak spot. The Smasher knocks players back with powerful blows and a special fast charge attack, and can launch operators through windows behind them.

Since the new enemy archetypes cause a lot of damage, Ubisoft has massively increased the map size that Rainbow Six Siege players have come to expect from regular 5-on-5 online gameplay. For example, the first part of an upcoming Outbreak map called Hospital is about 5 times as large as House is. Outbreak will take place over 3 different maps called Resort, Hospital, and Junk Yard. Each features a different focus on play styles, with Resort boasting a balance of indoor and outdoor combat, Hospital forcing players into tight corridors, and Junk Yard reportedly reeling in absolute chaos with lots of exploding objects.

Outbreak brings a strong focus on stealth mechanics. Players can sneak around the map with their flashlights turned off, silently taking down the parasites as they progress to the next adventure. However, when things inevitably get hairy, swarms will rush towards players, who can either force their way through or return to a quieter spot of the map and return to the undetected state. Since visual impairment plays such a large theme, each operator is equipped with mounted flashlights which can help with aim at the cost of giving away one's position.

From what we saw in the Six Invitational livestream, it looks like each map is compartmentalized into independent sections. The Hospital map showed a lockable door that players had to reach, areas where players could restock on ammunition and health boosts, and even a rotation between traditional game mode types: the players rescued a hostage named Dr. Makintosh, but instead of an immediate extraction they had to go through a Secure Area (base defense, if you will) section of gameplay before continuing. Operators have special biohazard barricades and reinforcements, which appear to be deployed at a much faster rate than traditional barricades and walls.

Ubisoft isn't just limiting the squad size to 3 for Outbreak, but is also limiting the roster selection to operators which made sense in such an environment (with the beloved recruit being a notable exception). This marks the first time both defensive and attacking operators can join the same side, and will also serve to be a great introduction to the two new Operation Chimera operators. While Thermite plays an integral role in the plot of outbreak, he won't be a playable character for the event. As a nice touch of fan service, players will also see Thermite and Doc's full faces.

Ubisoft has built up the Outbreak event to be a massive spectacle which should offer a brand new experience for Rainbow Six Siege players. The 4 week long event will launch on March 6, 2018, though those on PC can test it out on the technical test server starting February 20, 2018. Despite some recent misadventures in regards to tiered game pricing, the future for Rainbow Six Siege looks very bright. Outbreak will release in tandem with Operation Chimera and some significant overarching map buffs, which means players both new and old will be in for plenty of fresh experiences next month.

Rainbow Six Siege is available now on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. The Outbreak event will launch on March 5, 2018 and will run until April  3, 2018.

Source: Ubisoft