Brava feels like a return to form forRainbow Six Siege. Even more so after a slew of recent operators capable of throwingknives to spawn temporary pools of ice, or project themselves into drones to get the jump on unaware forces started doing the rounds. What was once a serious tactical shooter with a gruff, militaristic edge suddenly wasn’t taking itself very seriously. But with the beginning of its eighth year things are set to change. Brava is all business and no bullshit.
I haven’t been a Siege player since university, and much of that time was spent as a nervous fool hiding away in corners and leaning around doorways only to be wiped out by a well-placed headshot. Those who play Siege on the regular are laughably good at it, possessing an intricate knowledge of the meta and a love for certain operators that newcomers will never be able to attain. Brava feels like an attempt to circumvent that reputation, yet she also introduces a gadget that seems to frustrate everyone and blur the lines between skill and approachability.
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Brava’s defining boon is the Kludge Drone, a remote controlled robot armed with a miniature turret that can turn enemy gadgets and traps against them, destroying a defending team’s foundation from the inside if you’re sneaky enough to use it properly. With its swift speed and surprising durability, I can see a player with an intimate memory of maps picking them apart with expert precision. Dipshits like me however struggled through several matches testing out its specific functions and exactly how far the drone can be pushed.
Turns out it can ruin an entire team’s day depending on their arsenal, with door lasers and floor traps turned against allies who treat them with complacency. On more than one occasion I turned to leave a room containing the objective only to have my means of escape torn away from me, protective shields and traps threatening to murder me in seconds with little means to stop them. It isveryoverpowered right now, and I’m unsure whether the audio cues and on-screen prompts are quite enough to counter her effectively. The operators required to do such a thing are also too limited or not common enough in their rotation at the moment.
A new operator being introduced who can disable defensive abilities right when Ubisoft is desperate to introduce new players to live services proves more and more volatile. Brava also represents a clear power fantasy that new players will want to inhabit, giving them freedom to rule over a cast of unknown characters and all the powers at their disposal.
You could easily unlock Brava and take her on a whistle-stop tour of casual playlists, learning the ins and outs of certain skills by possessing them instead of deploying it yourself. This isn’t the design intention though, and merely me reading between the lines as I try to turn a damning negative into a begrudging positive. It’s going to need a few updates.
From a gameplay perspective, Brava is relatively fast and equipped with an arsenal that can handle itself in a firefight but will likely cave under pressure if she’s caught in the midst of a droning session. Her design is relatively simplistic too, drawing inspiration from her Brazilian background while donning a military uniform that is both stylish and practical. Ubisoft said it wanted to take a ‘back-to-basics’ approach to Brava’s look, which after several years of far more outlandish operators gives me a bit of whiplash.
She has three Speed and one Health with the ARA-308 or a CAMRS as a primary weapon and a USP40 or a Super Shorty as a secondary weapon that players can switch between and customise depending on their preference. The simplicity in her design isn’t just visual, but also mechanical, and I fear this will result in her becoming an easy pick that newcomers fail to understand and veterans abuse. Her release is only a few weeks away, and it will be interesting to see how fans respond to an operator capable of reworking much of the depth they’ve spent years investing in.
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