Rainbow Six Siege gets loot boxes in new update
For the first time in Rainbow Six Siege, you'll be able to earn cosmetic loot crates just by playing.
Rainbow Six Siege received a new update 2.11 this week, and alongside it, Ubisoft added a new way for players to acquire cosmetic items in the form of loot crates.
Called Alpha Packs, these boxes will come with some of the already existing cosmetic items as well as some new Legendary-level items only found in them. What you get in the packs include weapon skins, character customisation items like helmets, weapon charms and so on.
Alpha Packs are earned by just playing the game, but Ubisoft has yet to actually explain how the system works in more details. There's also no word on whether or not you'll be able to spend real money to buy these packs.
Although they are part of patch 2.11, Alpha Packs are actually on a separate release schedule that's going to automatically make them available on every platform gradually, so as not to impact performance. You can see a video of YouTuber Jytus unboxing over 200 of them below (via RPS).
It's worth noting that the game already has a storefront that lets you browse hundreds of cosmetic items and buy them without relying on RNG.
Update 2.11 makes improvements to Hibana’s X-KAIROS Launcher to fix the bug that prevents the second charge of pellets from exploding. The developer also adjusted the pellets' distribution to prevent the issue cropping up when using the launcher between two reinforced walls. You can read the rest of the patch notes through here.
Next week, Ubisoft will publish an FAQ designed to answer all lingering questions about Alpha Packs.