When Ubisoft kicked off a brand-new season of Rainbow Six Siege with Year 9 Season 2, expectations were mixed. Players had seen countless Operators pile up over nearly a decade, so the idea of reworking the default Recruit class was... an idea. Unfortunately for Ubisoft, that idea quickly turned into a firestorm. Operation New Blood, launched on June 11, 2024, did not bring a new map, a new weapon, or a new Operator. It brought two glorified loadouts. That was the main event. And the community noticed.
The centerpiece of Operation New Blood was a complete overhaul to the Recruit class. In the past, the Recruit was the sad, default Operator assigned to players who forgot to pick someone before the timer hit zero. It was a simple, lovable placeholder. Ubisoft decided to split that placeholder into two separate classes: Striker on the attacking side and Sentry on defense. The concept was not terrible, but the execution? That was where things got wobbly. A whole season was spent on this rework. No new Operator. No new map. Just a fancy menu screen and two slightly different Recruit loadouts. Was this really what players had been waiting for? Short answer: absolutely not.
Adding fuel to the bonfire, Ubisoft also introduced a controversial membership subscription alongside the season. For a game that already asks players to buy the base game, battle passes, and cosmetics, the subscription felt like someone asking for a tip after serving a glass of tap water. Fans were not impressed. The subscription became the second punch in a one-two combo of disappointment. Could players have swallowed a subscription if the season had been packed with content? Maybe. But with a thin content drop and a Recruit rework nobody requested, it landed about as well as a frag grenade in a hostage room.
The community's reaction was loud, messy, and occasionally hilarious. Over on the Rainbow Six Siege subreddit, multiple posts expressed frustration. Reddit user Arkence_1 declared, "it's time to review bomb" Rainbow Six Siege, adding, "This is the worst season we've had in 9 years." That is not the kind of feedback a developer prints out and hangs on the fridge. Another user, Itz_zk, called it the "worst season of all time" and unloaded a list of gripes that could fill a whiteboard. They said:
"They somehow broke more than they fixed, in typical ubisoft fashion. The colours look weird, controller aim feels awful, bad fps issues, lag (not just my internet, everyone in my games has it too), bad servers, bad queue times, a recruit rework NO ONE asked for, and a lazy battle pass to top it all off."
That quote packs about nine separate disasters into one breath. The colors looked weird? Controller aim felt awful? Bad FPS? Lag so universal that it could only be a server problem? That is not a season; that is a support group waiting to happen.
Fans also pointed to a "terrible Battle Pass" and a slew of new bugs and glitches. The season included some balance adjustments and map updates, but the overall feeling was that Ubisoft had brought a butter knife to a gunfight. The table below summarizes the community's top complaints in Year 9 Season 2.
| Complaint | Community Reaction |
|---|---|
| Recruit split into Striker and Sentry | Why did this take a whole season? |
| No new Operator or map | Cue disappointed groans |
| Controversial subscription | Extra cost for less excitement |
| Bad Battle Pass | Lazy, uninspired rewards |
| FPS drops, lag, queue issues | Servers on a coffee break |
| Controller aim changes | Muscle memory in shambles |
Even with all that negativity, Rainbow Six Siege still sat at "mostly positive" in recent reviews on Steam. That little detail added an odd twist to the story. Perhaps long-time players were too busy clutching their controllers in casual matches to leave a bad review. Or maybe the game's core foundations remained strong enough to keep the overall score afloat. Either way, the gap between the official review score and the subreddit's mood was wide enough to park a tactical van in.
By 2026, Operation New Blood is remembered less as a bold experiment and more as a cautionary tale about spending an entire season on a change no one asked for. The Recruit rework still exists, Striker and Sentry still hold down their corners, and the subscription still has its detractors. But the sting of that 2024 season has not entirely faded. It remains a handy reference point for players who think Ubisoft is about to do something strange: remember Operation New Blood? Exactly. Sometimes the loudest feedback is not a review bomb—it is the echo of a community asking one simple question: why?