Be prepared to explore the humid outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with Rainbow Six Season 3 Operation Skull Rain. The vibrant new multiplayer map, “Favela,” is designed to drive a close-quarter flow of combat indoors with plenty of opportunities for rooftop action outdoors.
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To have a behind the scene look for this map, we asked a few questions to Art Director Gregory Fromenteau. He revealed having a story in mind while building the Favela map: as BOPE, a Rio-based CTU working specifically in favelas, you are no longer breaching a perimeter to conduct an assault. “Your assault truck was ambushed during a patrol and now you are surrounded,” Fromenteau explained. The goal was to infuse the map with a sense of being directly exposed to the threat, which is very real to BOPE units working every day in a high-risk environment.
To reproduce the feeling that “no place is safe,” we implemented a new technique: the exterior shell destruction. In Favela, the main buildings are destructible from the outside, which requires a new assessment as to how vulnerable you are where you are standing. “With this new feature in our map, you can’t hide. So you better get moving,” said Fromenteau.
It was also the first time that the Dev team invited professional Rainbow Six Siege players to test the map while still in development. Fromenteau confessed it was “a bit nerve-wracking to launch the map for the first time in front of [the professional players], but it quickly dissolved when we watched them shouting and laughing with us while doing amazing stuff in that world”.
As for the Art Direction, Fromenteau admitted wanting to steer clear from depicting a favela pejoratively, insisting on making it what it truly is: a neighborhood where people live, shop, and raise their families. “I wanted to make it feel like people actually live,” he added, “to portray bright colors, schools, and shops. The reason for BOPE being there at all, well, you’ll find that hidden inside—not on the streets”.
The daytime ambiance is taking place around noon on a market day, when people are doing their routine, but as soon as someone fires, the streets becomes eerily quiet. For nighttime, our Fromenteau confessed picking an ambiance that might surprise a few: the “goal was to bring a real contrast with the grim darkness veiling the alleys in certain sections of our map. All I can say is that it will feel very much alive”.
Operation Skull Rain releases on August 2nd. Join us on the Official Twitch channel on July 30th during the Xbox Pro League final for a full reveal and exclusive live demo. Come back daily to the Skull Rain website for new information about the upcoming update.
