Greetings Operators. The team at Ubisoft wanted to drop an update on Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege’s latest season. Please read on.

—-

Hello Operators, and welcome to Year 6 Season 1 of Rainbow Six Siege: Crimson Heist. We want to give you an overview of what to expect from the game’s latest update, which is going live today on PS4 and PS5. As well as a look at our new operator and reimagined map, we’ve got details on an upcoming Free Weekend. 

Play Video

Meet Flores, master thief and remote-controlled explosive expert 

Firstly, let’s introduce you to the game’s newest operator: Flores. This brand-new addition to team Rainbow from Argentina is a food-truck owner by day, and most importantly, a master thief by night.

Flores has access to a remote-controlled explosive device: he can deploy this at his feet, and drive it through the map during a limited period. At the end of the timer (or earlier if you choose), the device will arm itself, become bulletproof, and start a short fuze countdown, at the end of which it detonates in a powerful explosion. Flores also comes armed with an AR33 and a SR-25.

If you want to make the most out of team Rainbow’s latest recruit, you will need to be sly. His ability makes him a powerful support operator to use from the backline. He has excellent area denial and soft breach capacities. But in Rainbow Six Siege, you can never win alone, and it is especially true for Flores. He is vulnerable while he is guiding his drone, so make sure your friends are protecting you.

Oh, and do not forget to check if there is a Mozzie or a Mute in the enemy team. You would not want something bad to happen to your RCE, don’t you?

A reimagined Border map

You will also have access to a reimagined Border map, which has been newly reworked with an interior balcony connecting the east staircase to the break room. The bathroom has also been extended to be connected to the tellers. It is a new challenging environment with some entry blocked, a reduced number of destructible walls and an additional outside staircase.

Rainbow Six Siege Free Weekend 

If you are waiting to invite your friends to Rainbow Six Siege’s intense close-quarters multiplayer action, there is no better time. Assemble your squad and invite them to play for free on PS4 from March 18 to 24.

It’s been a strange and difficult past 12 months. The pandemic, social injustice, and job elimination have impacted many of my closest friends, family, and co-workers. All of these factors, paired with an inability to see friends and family face-to-face, lulled me into a kind of self-reflective cocoon where I had to ask myself some tough questions about what really matters.

I’ve been making games for a long time — over 25 years now! I’ve had the opportunity to lead the creation of two highly successful original IPs and build multiple teams and studios from the ground up. Some of these adventures have been more successful than I could have ever imagined, and others less so. 

Several people have asked me recently: “After all of these experiences, do you still want to be in the games industry?” The answer is always an unwavering YES! The games industry is where I belong!

Whether it’s playing Settlers of Catan with my kids or Valheim with my team, games continue to bring me joy. They’re a way to relax, connect, and share experiences with people I care about. And the act of making games is, in many ways, even more fulfilling. Getting to bring together experts across so many different creative fields – from music composers, to concept artists, to programmers (yes! programmers are creative too!) into a perfectly synched orchestra that delivers new worlds for players to explore. For me, there is nothing more fulfilling or rewarding I can imagine doing.

As I took stock of my career over the last few years and started to think about what to do next, I came to a very simple conclusion: I need to get back to what I love doing most, and do so in a way that gives our team the freedom to explore, inspire, and create. 

And so today I’m announcing Haven, an independent studio where many of the talented game developers I have worked with for years (and love dearly!) are coming together to do what we are most passionate about. It’s time for us to refocus on GAMES in a place where we can practice our crafts without any barriers or impediments. We want to create worlds where players can escape, have fun, express themselves, and find community. We want to pour our passion into a project. We want to make something wondrous for people to experience. Because we believe in the power of games to bring joy to people’s lives. And Sony does, too. Their commitment to excellence is unmatched. It’s why I couldn’t be happier for their backing and support.

Together, we want to create games that are a haven for players, and we want to build a studio that is a haven for developers. So, while we don’t have many details to announce today, I want the PlayStation community to know that Haven Studios is already hard at work on an unannounced IP. We can’t wait to show you more!

Hello, everyone. I am Michel Ziegler, the creator and developer behind Mundaun, a folklore-inspired horror game and my first full-length title as a one-man game development studio!

Mundaun has been a passion project for me since I began development in 2014. Every character, scene and even environmental textures in the game are hand-pencilled – you can imagine how much drawing I’ve had to do over the years.

It’s amazing to finally share the game with you all after working on it for so many years. Creating a game as a solo developer has certainly been an exciting journey, one with plenty of ups and downs.

Collecting references for inspiration

The Alps hold a special importance to me, and everything from Mundaun’s story to its characters and environments celebrate the remarkable culture of the Swiss region of Grisons. Mundaun is heavily inspired by the Alps’ rich history of myth and culture, and pays homage to the oppressive atmosphere of works like Jeremias Gotthelf’s “The Black Spider”.

In order to do so, I tried to gather as many books and references for many of the elements I’ve included in the game. I have been scavenging thrift stores over the years, and must have collected at least 50 books with old photographs from rural life in the Alps, which are my biggest visual inspirations for the look of the game. The atmosphere these black and white pictures have, to me, is a window into almost a different world, and I wanted to immerse myself in the world in a way.

Scouting real-life locations

The chapel in Mundaun was the very first thing I modeled for the game. I didn’t really have a plan for a game, but I started to create this small piece of a world that featured a chapel, and the ideas continued to flow from there.

It’s still one of my favorite places in the game, and one where you can see that the game is entirely drawn by hand. Everything from the ceiling to the windows and the benches were inspired by this chapel in Platenga, which is full of these incredible drawings and paintings. It’s like a drawing inside of the game.

Another location in the game is the Painter’s House, which is a real house that was built and used by an artist named Alois Carigiet in the 1950s. He was a very well-known Swiss painter and illustrator of children’s books. He put a variety of drawings on the house walls, one of which inspired a puzzle i

Hi, I’m Matt and I’m thrilled to announce my FPS project Severed Steel. Severed Steel is a single-player shooter featuring a fully destructible voxel environment, loads of bullet time, and a unique one-armed protagonist.

Play Video

Maybe the most unique aspect of Severed Steel is its protagonist, Steel. Steel loses her arm in an accident just before the start of the game. EdenSys, the gigantic corporation responsible for her injury, decides to abandon her rather than help. The campaign is about Steel liberating others crushed under the boot of EdenSys while seeking revenge for her abandonment. 

The missing arm concept came to me while thinking a lot about gameplay mechanics. I wanted to subvert the concept of reloading in shooting games, and I liked the concept of players constantly throwing, ditching, and picking up new weapons. I considered the idea of a one-armed character. Someone that would find creative ways to keep well-stocked with ammo in the midst of battle: rather than worry about reloading, they’d use their agility to steal weapons from enemies’ hands. Having a one-armed character who can’t reload opened a lot of unique gameplay. But the decision to have a protagonist with one arm meant I was dealing with a subject outside my own experience. And if the game were to star such a protagonist, it must be playable by people who can relate to Steel’s experience.

Before committing to the character design I researched what it is like to be a gamer with one arm. Through that I discovered a lot. For instance: Did you know there is a vibrant community on YouTube of highly skilled console FPS gamers who play with one arm? Taking my learnings from that, I made sure to include a custom button binding option to be dictated by the player. Once I was confident I could realize the character of Steel in an inclusive way, I committed to the design. 

Email us at PSPodcast@sony.com!

Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google or RSS, or download here

This week, the team fielded your listener letters with quality recommendations on games that can be completed in a night or two. Plus, we get the soundtrack from Astro’s Playroom stuck in our heads again.video gamespodcastplaystation

Stuff We Talked About

• Little Nightmares II
• Sackboy: A Big Adventure
• Astro’s Playroom
• Limbo
• Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture
• Firewatch
• We Were Here
• Outriders

The Cast

Tim Turi –  Senior Content Communications Specialist, SIE

Kristen Zitani – Senior Content Communications Specialist, SIE

Read more

In celebration of International Women’s Day earlier this week, we asked you to share the amazing women in games that have inspired you over the years using #PSshare #PSblog. We didn’t just ask for your shares, but to tell us what about these heroines and anti-heroes struck a chord with you. Here are this week’s inspiring highlights: 

“Remaining strong after a great loss in her life, Aloy is nothing short of a strong heroine. All while projecting kindness to others. Something I relate to and try to do daily.” – @kaytanaa on Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn

“Lara Croft will always be special to me –  This character has genuinely helped and inspired me.” – @XxPAGZxX on Lara Croft of the Tomb Raider series

She is a supporting antagonist in Ghost of Tsushima.
She is not samurai, but she is a born killer. Strong & Beautiful.” – @azuazu1202luna on Tomoe from Ghost of Tshushima

“Jesse takes in so much and adjusts her perspective on reality without fully understanding what’s going on. All she knows is that if she doesn’t fix things, the world is in danger.” – @MdeavorVP on Jesse Faden from Control

“A unique female character that held her own with her brother and ended up becoming his savior from Jack the Ripper. She had strength, smarts & leadership skills. BONUS: We also got to play older Evie!” – @MisthosLiving on Evie Frye of Assassin’s Creed Syndicate

“Seeing Raven overcome her past hardships and grow as a person was amazing to see and carries a meaningful message. Her teaming up with Kat in Gravity Rush 2 was one of the game’s highlights.” – @Draikin on Raven from Gravity Rush 2

“Not all strong women in video games need carry a weapon. Hailey Cooper is know in East Harlem for her talent