Rainbow Six Siege's Bullets Will Soon Penetrate Limbs--Here's How It Works

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege will change how bullet penetration works in its Y4S4 season update so that shots will do more realistic damage to their human targets. These updates will mean that some weapons will be able to hit more than one target per shot, while others will be able to pierce through one body part of an Operator and hit another, potentially doing more damage.

The exact details have been explained on the game's dev blog, complete with a diagram explaining the levels of penetration different guns and bullets can achieve. This ranges from no penetration to full penetration (get your laughs out now because we're going to use that word a lot in this write-up). This change aims to make shots more lethal and "reduce the impression of inaccurate hit registration."

When this system is in place, shotguns and machine pistols will work much the same as they did before--your shots will hit the body part they hit without passing through. This is how most guns in Rainbow Six Siege have operated up until this point, and these ones will continue to have no penetration.

Simple penetration, which will effect most types of guns, will mean that bullets can pass through one part of an Operator's body and hit another point. For example, the post states that if an Operator is shielding their face after a flashbang and you shot them in the hand with an assault rifle, the bullet will pass through their hand and potentially hit them in the head, resulting in a headshot. For guns with simple penetration, the damage taken from a shot will be modified by which parts the bullet passes through, but the essential takeaway is that you'll now do more damage if your bullet penetrates. Bullets operating under simple penetration rules will not penetrate through to a third body part, though, nor will they pass through and hit anyone else.

Designated marksman rifles and sniper rifles will offer full penetration, meaning that if you shoot someone with one of these guns you could potentially hit the person behind them, too. If your bullet hits a second Operator, they will take 70% of the damage they would from an equivalent full shot, meaning that a well-timed sniper bullet will be extremely dangerous. Bullets cannot pass through into a third person, though.

This system will go up on the test server ahead of launch in the full game. Ubisoft is also currently working on Rainbow Six Quarantine, a PvE spin-off that will come to both current and next-gen consoles.