Rainbow Six Siege Skull Rain Expansion's Map and Improvements Revealed

Having revealed it earlier this week, Ubisoft has now provided new information regarding Rainbow Six Siege's upcoming Operation Skull Rain expansion.

This starts with Favela, the new map coming to all players for free as part of the update. We get a quick look at this new locale in the new video above. As part of the original announcement, Ubisoft claimed it's the most destructible map released yet, which we now know is because it adds "exterior shell destruction."

What this means is that the "main buildings" are destructible from the outside, according to a blog post. That makes it more difficult to hide, as there are new angles from which enemies can attack. The map will be shown off more during the Xbox Pro League final later this week

Also coming as part of the expansion are what Ubisoft labels as quality-of-life improvements. These include the ability to decide who spawns with the bomb diffuser during TDM-Bomb matches in Ranked and Custom games. There are also improvements to the menus, such as a way to check your team's loadout while picking an Operator. The North indicator on the compass should now be easier to read, and the way health is displayed is now different.

"We removed the Operator speed level since it’s not a relevant dynamic information while in the heat of a match," explained presentation director Toni Da Luz. "This allowed us to feature your health and additional armor (e.g. Rook) much more efficiently than before."

While not tied directly to the Skull Rain expansion, Ubisoft has also announced an additional layer of anti-cheat protection that's coming. The BattlEye system "focus[es] on prevention rather than behavior," which is already handled by the existing FairFight system.

A beta for BattlEye will run on PC with some "large scale" tests over the course of "several weeks." During that time, it won't issue bans, though FairFight will continue to do so. Once it's fully implemented, it will kick and ban players as necessary for cheating. This is detailed in full in a new FAQ.

Operation Skull Rain launches on August 2. In addition to the new map, it adds two Operators that will be exclusive to season pass holders for a week, after which time anyone can purchase them with in-game currency.

If you own an Xbox One, you can try out the full game for free (and get it at a discount) this weekend.