One of the reason that Rainbow Six Siege by Ubisoft has been doing so well years after release is because they have been offering not only new maps, but new characters to play as via Operators. Each Operator is their own special character with their own movesets and weapons that they prefer to use. Ubisoft has been very good about keeping these characters balanced, but with their upcoming update Wind Bastion, they’re taking extra steps to make sure that the new Operators don’t break the game.
This comes on the heels on them being nerfed in the test server because of player feedback. Now, on their website, they note that for competitions, there’s going to be an “Evaluation Period” for the new characters:
To avoid further unintended mechanics at the highest levels of competitive play, we are implementing measures to help maintain the game’s competitive integrity as we continue to evolve Rainbow Six Siege esports. We are therefore introducing an Evaluation Period i.e. a period within which the operators of any new season are unavailable to pick in competitive play.
As for how long the Evaluation Period is:
By default this period will be 3 months, and our design team will assess each operator individually and consolidate their results with feedback from the pro community to determine if extending the Evaluation Period is appropriate.
While this may seem odd, Ubisoft is trying to make the more competitive side of Rainbow Six Siege more fun and fair. For by using these 3 months to evaluate, they can see how the players at large use the characters, and then fix any other problems or issues that they might find with them.
Ubisoft made sure to state however that this Evaluation Period is only for the eSports scene. Once Wind Bastion arrives, all players who have access to the content will get to play as the new Operators.
