I am unable to imagine it lastly occurred.
On a dusty day in Might 2016, just some months into Rainbow Six Siege’s redemption marketing campaign following its disastrous launch, a Navy Seal named Blackbeard joined the workforce. He was solely the second attacker added after launch, and together with his defending counterpart Valkyrie raised Siege’s whole roster dimension to 24. Blackbeard’s distinctive gadget, a rifle-mounted ballistic protect that negated headshots from the entrance, was instantly controversial. Headshots are king in Rainbow Six Siege—it is one of many solely video games the place they are a assured one-shot-kill—so you’ll be able to think about how an operator who will get to disregard that threat with few downsides grew to become everybody’s favourite to complain about.
Regardless of Blackbeard being the goal of so many requires nerfs, bans, or straight-up deletion, he has remained on the roster comparatively unchanged eight years and 50(!) operators later. The Blackbeard of 2024 can nonetheless block headshots totally free and win fights he would not need to win—however that every one ends quickly. Ubisoft unveiled its long-awaited Blackbeard rework this previous weekend:
By “rework,” what Ubisoft apparently meant is that Blackbeard is a totally totally different operator now. Positive, he makes use of the identical rifles he used to, however his rifle protect has been changed with a full-size riot protect. That formally makes Blackbeard a protect operator identical to Blitz, Conflict, and Montagne. After all, his protect is particular: the highest of it could retract, permitting Blackbeard to make use of his major weapons whereas nonetheless protected against the torso down, and the protect may also comfortable breach by partitions (a primary for Siege). It is a fairly neat trick, and after taking part in a couple of rounds with Ubisoft final week, I am satisfied new Blackbeard is enjoyable.
Screw enjoyable
Enjoyable is not the issue—what rubs me the fallacious approach is that this Blackbeard may as nicely not even be Blackbeard anymore. This feels very totally different from when Ubi reworked Tachanka by making his machinegun a major and giving him a grenade launcher. In that case, I feel Ubi did an honest job of constructing Tachanka viable whereas nonetheless sustaining his id as a suppressive presence. What’s occurred to Blackbeard is extra like a top-to-bottom alternative in all however identify.
His function has dramatically shifted from “man who holds angles and wins direct gunfights” to a “bullet sponge who dangers getting headshot each time he slowly brings his gun to the prepared.” It is form of like if Overwatch 2’s Tracer grew to become a tank in a single day, or if Valve remembered Staff Fortress 2 exists lengthy sufficient to switch the Heavy’s minigun with a flamethrower. Ignoring the jarring mechanical shift, the pairing appears to be like aesthetically ugly—Blackbeard himself remains to be decked out in his iconic desert camo, however his all-black protect with goofy cranium insignia appears to be like unrelated and cheesy. This Blackbeard is a botched whiteout job. He simply appears to be like incorrect.
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The worst half is that, eight years later, no critical individual actually cares about Blackbeard anymore. He’s not notably in style, gamers do not care sufficient to ban him in Ranked, and he is not taking over any house. He is nonetheless irritating to combat towards generally, however I by no means mentioned he was all that good. Gamers have gotten higher at reacting to his presence by aggressively calling out his location, shocking him with flanks, and easily aiming for his intestine as an alternative of his protect. Blackbeard 2.0 will in all probability be higher, and is definitely a cleaner slot in trendy Siege, however this appears like a foul commerce.
After working with (and round) the identical rifled-shielded beard bro for many of my grownup life, my mind nonetheless barely accepts that the Blackbeard I do know is certain for a similar dwell service limbo as pre-nerf Mercy and the entirety of CS:GO. Blackbeard’s id—and a major image of Rainbow Six Siege’s early years—will quickly be gone. It sucks that long-running video games have gotten comfy with actually deleting their historical past within the identify of current stability.
It sucks much more that, the extra vestiges of outdated Siege Ubi chips away, the extra content material it has to resell to us within the type of a “Siege OG” fashion throwback—a fleeting type of preservation that dangles nostalgia like a carrot on a stick. This is not how dwell service video games ought to get outdated.
