Rainbow Six Siege’s Operation North Star reveal introduces Thunderbird, reworked Favela

Ubisoft has announced that the second season of Rainbow Six Siege‘s Year Six is Operation North Star, and it will introduce a new healer to the Defenders as well as a reworked version of Favela.

The new Operator coming with Operation North Star is Thunderbird, a member of the Nakoda nation and the game’s first North American First Nation character. A defender, Thunderbird’s gadget is a Kona Healing Station, a stationary gadget that heals both teammates and enemies who are within its range. Once the Kona does its thing, it goes into a cooldown period before it can be used again.

As for her loadout, Thunderbird is a “low-armor, high-speed operator.” Her primary choices are the Spear .308 assault rifle or the SPAS-15 shotgun, and her secondary options are the Bearing 9 SMG or Q-929 semiautomatic pistol. She seems like she’ll be a classic set-it-and-forget-it roaming defender.

Operation North Star will also introduced a reworked Favela. The original Favela has not been in the competitive rotation for a while now, but Ubisoft is hoping to change that with its reimagining. The new version of Favela will feature “rooms, better map overview, and improved navigation,” Ubisoft stated in a press release. “These changes will improve readability, making sure players always know where they are and where they are going when playing on Favela.”

The next Siege test server update goes live on May 25th and tests two additional features that Ubisoft mentioned during its runup to Crimson Heist: a revamped armor system and activities after death. The new armor system will convert that stat into additional health to make its impact more readable. Meanwhile, activities after death will let players use their drones or gadgets from beyond the grave. However, these changes are not set to launch with Operation North Star and will come to the main game at a later date.

Updates that are coming with Operation North Star are Scoreboard 2.0, new corpse icons, fixes to bullet holes, and changes to Melusi, Mira, and Maestro.

Ubisoft has yet to announce Operation North Star’s release date, but it’s currently scheduled to arrive sometime in June.