‘Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege’ DLC Season Pass Details Revealed

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege, the upcoming FPS from Ubisoft, recently announced a DLC Season Pass, as most AAA titles do these days. When first announced, they were fairly tight-lipped. Everyone knew the Season Pass was coming, but nobody really knew exactly what it entailed beyond that there would be four major content expansions for Rainbow Six: Siege in 2016; each expansion bringing with it a new map and two new characters, each armed with new primary and secondary weapons and a new gadget. The new maps will be free to all players, to avoid splitting the community between the haves and have-nots.

Now, according to a report from GameSpot, the full details of the Rainbow Six: Siege Season Pass have been revealed, and it offers a lot more than DLC access.

To understand what the Season Pass is offering, one first has to understand Rainbow Six: Siege‘s currency model. The game will have two currencies; a currency earned in-game, called Renown, and a microtransaction currency known as the R6 Credit (R6, Rainbow Six, get it?). Again according to GameSpot, nearly every action a player takes in Rainbow Six: Siege, from logging on and making kills, to watching tutorials and completing challenges, will earn them Renown, although killing teammates will cause players to lose Renown; possibly as a subtle anti-griefing mechanism. The game’s developers expect that players will be able to earn roughly 1,000 Renown per hour of Rainbow Six: Siege play.

That Renown can be used to unlock new characters, or “operators,” as they’re called in-game, at a cost of 25,000 Renown each; given that’s 25 hours of gameplay right there and most non-multiplayer AAA titles release with maybe 50 hours of gameplay, it speaks for Ubisoft’s confidence in the game. They obviously feel that players are going to want to keep playing to earn those rewards.

Of course, if you’re pressed for time or just overburdened with cash, the R6 Credits come into play. Aside from being used to unlock premium weapon skins (which Ubisoft promises will have no effect on gameplay,) 600 R6 Credits can be spent to purchase a new character, at a cost of $5 (or less, if players buy their credits in bulk.)

That having been said, aside from access to all DLC, the Rainbow Six: Siege Season Pass offers players a permanent 5 percent bonus to their Renown gain, and it also comes with 600 R6 Credits; those credits are one-sixth of the $30 price tag for the Season Pass up front. Season Pass holders will also get seven days of exclusive access to new DLC.

Here’s the kicker; Season Pass holders will instantly gain access to the two new characters per expansion, without having to pay either in-game currency or R6 credits. At a cost of 600 Credits per, it’s akin to getting $40 worth of credits for that $30 Season Pass on top of everything else. Assuming that the average player may not want to spend 200 hours of their life to unlock new characters after paying for the DLC to add them to the game, it’s a pretty tempting offer. The pass will also come with the Gold and Collector’s editions of Rainbow Six: Siege, although it’s no savings that way; the full price of the Season Pass is built-in.

Also included in the Season Pass are six exclusive weapon skins (five of them animal-themed in the “Safari Bundle”) and two bonus daily challenges to bring in even more Renown.

The Season Pass is described as a “year-long” membership, so although Ubisoft hasn’t currently announced plans for DLC beyond the four expansions, it’s possible that another Season Pass will be in the offering for 2017 if the game does well enough to warrant additional content.

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege is set to release on December 1, 2016, for PC, PS4 and Xbox One. The basic game retails for $60, and the Season Pass for $30, or they can be purchased together as the $90 Gold Edition.

[Image via Ubisoft]