Rainbow Six Siege has now been available for over six years. The development team at Ubisoft has gone through a rollercoaster of public opinion for the online multiplayer tactical shooter, but has kept Rainbow Six Siege popular and successful through robust post-launch support. Even after six years, however, accidents happen. That's the conclusion that Ubisoft has come to following the release of a nerf that led to significant negative feedback. Ubisoft, to its credit, is now reverting the nerf.
The nerf in question is referred to as the Smoke gas vulnerability change. What it does is make Smoke, a popular Operator choice in Rainbow Six Siege, vulnerable to his own smoke canisters. The change went through to Rainbow Six Siege's balance test server on April 5 and immediately received a significant negative response from the community. The response was strong enough to make Ubisoft reconsider the decision. The change is no longer planned to be pushed to Rainbow Six Siege's servers.
Ubisoft wrote a short letter to the community to explain the initial decision, as well as why it decided to revert the change. To start, Ubisoft explains that its made several changes in recent Rainbow Six Siege seasons to remove "hidden passives" like Zofia's Withstand. Ubisoft saw Smoke's invulnerability to his own grenades as one such passive, focused more on lore and character than on gameplay. Ubisoft says players have made clear, however, that it's still an important mechanic to them both gameplay-wise and narratively.
Ubisoft doesn't go so far as apologizing for the change, as a test server change is nothing too serious, but it does thank Rainbow Six Siege players for the feedback. It says that this is an example of why Ubisoft pushes changes to testing servers first. Ubisoft says that feedback is important to its development process and that is why the change isn't going through.
For those unfamiliar with Smoke and the change, it's not particularly complicated. Smoke's unique ability is access to remotely-detonated gas canisters. These canisters do damage over time and are considered quite powerful due to their ability to control map space. Smoke has always been able to sit in his own gas canisters. He's wearing a gas mask, after all. The change removed that advantage, damaging Smoke just like it damages foes.
To be fair to Ubisoft, the ability for Smoke to withstand his own grenade canisters in Rainbow Six Siege is an extremely powerful ability. It grants tactical advantages that few other Operators have. However, it's also really fun, which is what Rainbow Six Siege should prioritize keeping. The game can be balanced around that, which is what Ubisoft appears to have decided to do.
Rainbow Six Siege is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.