Bank gets reworked and promoted into the competitive map pool

As we approach the release of Rainbow Six Siege’s next season, Operation Crystal Guard, set for the 6th of September this year, a lot of what the new season will hold is being released to the Siege community.

Along with the usual new operator, some significant map reworks are incoming for Bank, Coastline, and Club House, with Bank getting the priority treatment, and for good reason. With the release of the new season, it appears that a freshened-up Bank will be shuffled back into the competitive map pool replacing Consulate, and the news seems to have gone down well with the pro players!

 

Despite Pengu’s pleas, there is no indication that the R6 dev team is planning to increase the size of the competitive map pool, but it seems they’ve certainly made a good call adding Bank back into the mix.

Bank has remained relatively untouched since Rainbow Six Siege’s release, with only a few minor reworks across the years, and as such the developers felt it was “time that Bank needed some love, and Bank got some love!” – Jeremy Dowsett (R6S Senior Level Designer). 

Though not a complete overhaul, there are significant changes, primarily in destructibility, level layout, and lines of sight.

The Changes

One of the first things changed are the bars and bannisters on the map: all the bannisters on spiral stairs and the stairs around Square Lobby have been transformed from metal to wooden material, meaning they should no longer catch your bullets as you engage in gunfights in those areas.

Addressing the same problem, the R6S development team has also completely removed all the metal bars around Vault – yes that’s right, the pesky metal grills in the Jail/Vault window that ruin your gunfights are finally gone!

Another extremely important and very welcome change is the reworking of the map’s windows and skylights, with a significant proportion of them now being blocked off by bulletproof metal sheets. Arguably the most important area of this is the blocking of all but one of the arched windows looking into Lobby from Alleyway to Garage – only the one closest to Garage is still open. This greatly aids Banana (the curved balcony overlooking Lobby), making it much less exposed and making it more difficult for attackers to shoot roaming or peaking defenders in that area.

Along with the main lobby arched windows, the entire Square Lobby skylight is now blocked off, giving much needed cover to defenders who already have to worry about the multitude of windows and doors in that area.

There have also been some important level layout changes, with an apparent focus on providing more choice for the players and improving the flow of gameplay. The largest change is a major rework of the elevators, expanding it into more of an elevator shaft at the bottom, with more space on both levels to increase usability for both the attack and the defense.

In the same vein of increased movement and choice, an alleyway has been created between the Jewellery Front and Back Alley spawn points, as well as the filing cabinet between Lobby and ATMs being removed to create an extra doorway, giving more options to the attackers.

The only other change to Bank is the moving of the vault hatch further into the Lobby/Vault rather than the jail area, meaning attackers will now be able to drop deeper into the basement, but will be more exposed in doing so from the lobby area.

How’s It Looking?

Overall, the primary aim of the Bank rework seems to be getting it ready for the professional leagues and for competitive play, with a clear focus on adjusting the way the map affects gunplay. Many of the irritating parts of Bank have been removed – such as the metal bars and bannisters that littered the map, along with changing the copious number of windows allowing attackers numerous sightlines into the objective and large areas of the map.

After the Crystal Guard test servers went live on August 17th, we’ve had a good amount of time to look at the upcoming Bank rework, and it’s looking fantastic. There’s a reason the Pro’s are happy that Bank is back, and the dev team have made a significant amount of quality-of-life improvements to make Bank just that much more enjoyable than it already was!

 

(Header via Ubisoft)