Rainbow Six Siege Is Changing How Explosions Work

Explosions in Rainbow Six Siege will work a bit differently in Year 5 Season 1, Ubisoft announced this week. Ubisoft will implement this change through a new "Shrapnel" system designed to make the impacts and effects of the explosions more realistic. This system will make it so that players who are hit with explosions even when they're behind destructible structures will have a clearer understanding of what hit them and why they were damaged despite being behind something.

Ubisoft introduced players to the new shrapnel system in a post on the game's site. Under the current system, destructible objects can limit the range of explosion damage. The new shrapnel system will make it so that these destructible objects still limit the damage players take, but they'll only block part of it as the shrapnel from explosions tears through certain barriers to hit opponents behind them.

"Shrapnel will allow explosion damage to be more realistic as damage that is applied to the player will be reduced based on the number of destructible objects the raycasts hit along the way," Ubisoft said. "Explosions will also be more transparent as shrapnel holes will provide much more visual feedback on the direction from which the explosion damage originated."

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Instead of simply damaging people who were behind these sorts of barriers that can be destroyed but are outside of an explosive's destruction radius, the explosions will now punch holes through the breakable barriers to deal diminished damage to the players. Several handy visuals showed how the effects of the explosions would penetrate breakable barriers with visible entry and exit points to show what happened. If you're behind a barrier that would normally block explosions, you'll still be safe there.

Ubisoft said the goal of this change was to implement a more realistic system that helps players better understand how they were hit by explosions and where those explosions came from.

"The art of destruction in Rainbow Six Siege is a one-of-kind experience that promotes realistic results and reactions. The addition of Shrapnel damage will be an improvement towards more realistic explosion effects and damage, as well as making feedback from explosions much more visual and transparent.

Expect to see this new shrapnel explosive system and other changes implemented in Rainbow Six Siege's Year 5 Season 1.