In an upcoming patch, Rainbow Six Siege’s most historically despised map will be among the first to make the transition from casual play to the Ranked map pool. Favela, a highly destructible level launched in 2016, was completely reworked in Siege’s most recent North Star upgrade. The map upgrade was originally supposed to be a “casual makeover” for Quick Play only, but Ubisoft is now convinced that it is balanced enough for Siege’s most competitive mode.
“Because we know you want to give it a shot in the moonlight, Favela is making its way to Ranked and Unranked playlists near you!” On Wednesday, Ubisoft issued a tweet.
The resurrected Favela features a substantially redesigned layout that solves frequent complaints while retaining the Favela’s aesthetic character. The most noticeable change is on the map’s exterior, where there are now much fewer destructible barriers.
Previously, the overwhelming quantity of barriers to strengthen or conceal made defending its bombsites difficult. On the assaulting side, the flexible map provided spawn peekers with several opportunities for easy kills. The remake follows a similar foundation to Siege’s previous map redos, with lots of breathing area on bomb locations, fewer possibilities for spawn peeks, and more staircases for simpler traversal.
In many respects, New Favela already seems like a Ranked map, with one major exception: it’s a nighttime-only destination. Before Ubi deleted them in 2018 for balance reasons, every map had a night variation (attackers could hide in the dark a little too well outside). Given that the only way to play Favela is at night, I’m thinking Ubi has altered its mind.
