'Rainbow Six Siege' Beta Set For Nov. 25-29; Four Expansions Planned For 2016

Before the game launches on December 1, Ubisoft is allowing more players to test Rainbow Six Siege one final time with an open beta on all platforms from November 25-29. It will feature 14 of the 20 characters, or "operators," along with three maps. Along with that announcement, the developers also revealed a roadmap for the game's future content.

When the game comes out, there will obviously be updates with various tweaks to its performance. Starting in January, however, developers will provide a major expansion. A total of four expansions are planned for 2016, arriving in three-month intervals. All in all, the four large batches of content will include eight new characters, four maps, new weapons, additional game modes, and more cosmetic items.

With each release, the maps and new modes will be available to play from the start. However, the new characters and additional weapon skins need to be unlocked with Renown points or R6 Credits. You can earn Renown in multiplayer with kills, helping teammates, and completing Daily Challenges. For the base game, you start with one operator and must spend Renown to unlock more characters (the first locked character will cost 500 Renown; the second will cost 1,000 Renown, and so on). Unlocking new operators from the expansion will cost even more -- specifically, 25,000 Renown.

If you're impatient or not gaining as much Renown as you'd like, you could opt to buy R6 credits, which come in packages of 600, 1200, 2670, 4920 and 7560. Ubisoft said that a pack of 600 R6 Credits will cost $4.99. While the price to unlock new characters increases in the base game and costs 25,000 Renown in the expansion, you would only need 600 R6 Credits to unlock extra operators. The microtransaction credits are also used to buy Renown Boosters or Tier 4 and 5 weapon skins, which can't be bought with Renown points.

So far, Ubisoft revealed only the name of the first expansion set for January, which is called "Operation Black Ice." More details about the other expansions and their release dates are bound to arrive in the coming months.

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Rexly Peñaflorida II is a Contributor at Tom’s Hardware. He writes news on tech and hardware, but mostly focuses on gaming news. As a Chicagoan, he believes that deep dish pizza is real pizza and ketchup should never be on hot dogs. Ever. Also, Portillo’s is amazing.

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