Typically Rainbow Six Siege provides a brand new gadget as a result of it is enjoyable to make use of, and typically it provides devices that fill an necessary function within the recreation’s ever-evolving meta. Azami, Siege’s first 12 months 7 operator, is a little bit of each.
Azami is a Japanese defender with a background in personal safety police (therefore her imposing go well with). Her gadget is the Kiba Barrier, a group of kunai knives that may rapidly patch up holes opened by attackers. Upon influence, the kunai dissipates a round cloud of gasoline that quickly hardens right into a bulletproof barrier about 1-meter in diameter.
That is proper, Siege now has an skilled in throwing knives, however she’s truly an overqualified handywoman with the strongest Flex Tape (or should you’re just a few years older, Mighty Putty) ever made. Here is how the Kiba seems to be in motion:
Blade dance
The Kiba is fairly nifty, and likewise somewhat goofy. Now 62 operators in, Siege has undoubtedly stepped past the pale by way of realism (different current devices embrace laser partitions and hologram decoys), however the Kiba remains to be an ideal match for Siege.
First, it is fully distinctive. There are actually dozens of operators focusing on destroying partitions and precisely one that may patch them again up. For those who’ve performed lots of Siege, this can be a radical energy shift for defenders. Bomb websites with ceilings susceptible to Sledge’s hammer have an additional layer of safety. Buck’s underbarrel shotgun, the simplest comfortable breaching software within the recreation, is powerless to Azami’s crunchy boundaries. Kiba boundaries are indestructible by any means—any explosive will destroy them and Sledge can nonetheless give it a very good hammer thwack—however their energy solely will increase as a spherical goes on.
A full workforce of attackers in all probability has one or two common operators able to destroying a Kiba barrier, however these odds go down when there are 60 seconds left and assets are unfold skinny. Delay techniques may be very highly effective in a tense ranked match. I feel this shall be Azami’s speciality. A final-minute kunai that blocks a vital sightline or blocks a chokepoint for only a few seconds might win Azami the spherical. However that additionally means she must survive to get her full use. Like Lesion, Azami begins with solely one in every of her Kunai and unlocks one other each 30 seconds. Together with the prep part, meaning it takes round 90 seconds (or half the spherical) to make use of all 5 of her kunai.
Patching holes will in all probability be the most typical use for the Kiba, however I additionally seen another enjoyable purposes in my few hours with Azami. When there is no Mute round to jam a drone gap, a Kiba barrier can block it off for good. This might show fairly helpful on maps the place drone holes are sometimes exploited to carry a sneaky angle.
Extra fascinating is Azami’s capacity to primarily create new partitions with the Kiba. It is not fairly so simple as it sounds—you may’t simply throw a kunai on the bottom and develop a brand new wall (doing that can simply make a flat barrier on the bottom). The Kiba barrier expands from the middle of the kunai on the identical aircraft because the floor it lands on, so should you throw them on the sting of objects like tables, desks, or doorways, they will broaden outwards. From there, you can even stack a Kiba on one another indefinitely, which may end up in a crude however efficient bulletproof wall.
Here is a fast instance on the second flooring of Shoreline:
Since noticing this trick, my thoughts has been abuzz questioning the place else it might be helpful to architect a brand new bulletproof wall or seal off complete hallways. As I realized the laborious approach, although, attackers may also make use of a Kiba barrier left behind. It’s going to take lots quite a lot of hours in a closed session with Ubi devs to know if Azami is as helpful as she appears, however I am fairly jazzed about her.
Unfinished enterprise
Azami’s patchwork gadget has a enjoyable little bit of historical past for those who have adopted Siege carefully for a very long time. Followers have proposed comparable gadget concepts for years on the sport’s subreddit (I proposed my very own in 2017). My hopes have been excessive that it’d lastly occur when point out of a “hole blocker” was found within the recreation’s code in 2018, however years of recent operators handed with no such gadget in sight. Ubi confirmed to me that the outlet blocker was certainly actual in 2020, clarifying that the gadget had gone by means of “so many prototypes” that have been deserted for quite a lot of causes. “Typically due to tech, oftentimes due to pure design. The way in which it was carried out wasn’t precisely pretty much as good as we wished it to be,” as former Siege designer Emilien Lomet advised me on the time.
It took some time, however Ubi lastly figured it out. It is gratifying to see an actual gap blocker in motion after occupying the highest of my wishlist for 5 years. I by no means thought it’d come within the type of a elaborate throwing knife, however I am into it.
We’re nonetheless weeks away from Azami releasing on reside Siege servers, however should you’re on PC, you may check out Azami for your self on the technical check server subsequent week.
