"We want to make sure that team play is really relied upon"-Ubisoft Montréal's Alexander Karpazis on Solis from Rainbow Six Siege Operation Solar Raid

Rainbow Six Siege is all set to drop the final Season for Year 7 with Operation Solar Raid. The new Operation will bring a brand new Colombian Operator to the roster who goes by the name of Solis. Apart from the new Operator, Siege will also get a new map added to the pool.

Year 7 was full of content for Rainbow Six Siege. There have been tons of changes that the title went through and Operation Solar Raid will be expanding on that further with more tweaks.

Solis will be an intel-based Defender who will be able to detect Attacker devices through walls. This makes her a force to be reckoned with for the opposition side.

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Alexander Karpazis from Ubisoft shares his insights on Solis in Rainbow Six Siege Operation Solar Raid

Alexander Karpazis is a renowned video game developer who is currently working as a Creative Director at Ubisoft Montréal on Rainbow Six Siege. He has also presented many Seasons of Siege on the big stage in front of fans whenever a new expansion dropped in the past.

In a conversation with Sportskeeda, Alex shared a deep insight into the upcoming expansion of Rainbow Six Siege. Since the upcoming Season will be the final expansion for Year 7, fans are excited to see what the new Colombian Operator can bring to the table.

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Q. What was the thought behind Solis' idea as an Operator?

Alexander: For Solis, we saw that there was a very real need for an Operator that could gain intel based on Attacker gadgetry. It is something we saw on the attacking side with IQ, dealing with any Defender gadgetry out there. But, on the defending side, there was nothing similar.

When you look at Attackers, they are always on phones, using their ability to move to a site. So that was our first idea. We wondered how we can provide that kind of intel to a defending Operator and balance that with the idea of playing on a team together. Then have an action, a next step to identify the threats around the bomb site.

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Q. Considering that Attackers are always on their drones looking for intel, it is given that Solis will receive an overwhelming amount of information. Do you think Solis could come off as a bit overpowered as a Defender?

Alexander: So that was our main challenge with this Operator. One, the amount of information that Solis can read, which works against her in terms of what she can communicate. We had it so that on the entire screen, you will be able to ping everything that Solis saw, at any given moment, and that was overwhelming.

Not only is it detrimental to the team in understanding what needs to be acted on first, but it also means your screen will be cluttered with pings. One of the balancing levers we had was to reduce the focus for Solis, on what she could ping the rest of the team.

You can either use a single yellow ping to communicate the enemy position, or you can use the larger ping, focused on the center of the screen. So you only have a set amount of ping to work with. Then it's on the cooldown and the team has to work with intel at the moment of the ping, while things can move and change like they always do in Siege.

We want to make sure that team play is really relied upon. So it's not just Solis who can act on the information, but also her team. This is why we wanted both of her arms to be consumed while reading for any intel, unlike IQ, Solis doesn't get any secondary when she is using her device. She has always relied on great communication with a partner to execute what she sees.

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Q. Is Solis a great Operator for solo-queuing?

Alexander: That is a really interesting thing we will see more and more, with players getting comfortable with what Solis is capable of and where she needs help. At the end of the day, being able to give information is useful to any team. No matter if you're solo queuing or playing with a pre-made five. There may be differences in execution you will see, but it's still going to be great intel at the end of the day.

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Q. Can Solis' loadout potentially see a nerf in the future considering how flexible it is with a Shotgun and an SMG-11?

Alexander: Right now we are trying to give everything to Solis so she can try the tools of her trade in a meaningful way. Giving her a Shotgun means she can create roaming opportunities or holes through the walls. She needs that kind of flexibility to take that next step after creating an intel ping.

On one side, she will be creating a lot of intel with her gadget but won't be able to fire right away, but then, if she is in positions where she can't use the information, she still needs to be impactful for the team. We wanted her loadout to respect that.

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Q. What is the best team composition for a team with Solis on board?

Alexander: It is a bit situational depending on the map that you have. There are some fantastic plays that you can pull off with a Kaid or a Bandit if you are trying to trick a wall, like some of the traditional exterior walls in some maps.

There is still value in bringing her to some maps. This is usually where you would want some aggressive Operators paired with Solis, so they can act on the intel, rather than a team of trap Operators who are just waiting for the Attackers to come in. We want Operators who can act on the intel.

Even having someone like Maestro, who can jump around the cams and shoot drones can be helpful for the team.

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Q. Does Solis really shine on maps where there is a lot of verticality such as the Nighthaven Labs, as it is one of the key pillars in Rainbow Six Siege?

Alexander: One of the most interesting ways to use Solis is through the verticality that the new Nighthaven Labs provide. Even being just a floor above and seeing that there is a plant going down, that bit of information is extremely useful for Solis to position herself like that vertically.

If you are on a more horizontal map, then you are playing around with the buffered rooms that are around any site, meaning Solis will have to roam comfortably around that. So for Nighthaven, it is focused, but you get the three stories, the vertical play where Solis shines.

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Q. How do you think professional players will react to Solis considering how methodical that level of play is?

Alexander: We already have an insight behind it. It is part of our process where whenever we are developing a new Operator we have pro-play sessions where we get their feedback, understand what their needs are, and also get a little bit of a hint about how they would play the Operator.

Solis is in a really flexible group, where for new players it would be helpful to understand their surroundings. For pro players, on the other hand, it would be a kind of intel-gathering gadget that would be pretty crucial for specific plays and overall just situational awareness that the rest of the team can benefit from.

For an attacking team, it is really important to find out that Solis is on board, that they need to be targeted if they are roaming around, hunting down their gadgets. It would be a pretty important cat-and-mouse game if we saw it in the higher levels of play for sure.

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Q. Can the Rainbow Six Siege community expect tweaks for other Operators now that Solis is coming to the pool just to balance out the meta?

Alexander: We always like discovering what the community discovers whenever we release a new Operator. We usually give a three-month window to observe the Operator and how they play out in the ecosystem with other Operators. This is so we can adjust the Operator or adjust the system surrounding it.

So for us, it would be an absolute pleasure to see how individuals adapt to play with Solis, and then over the next three months, we will just observe if they fit in the meta like they thought they would.

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Operation Solar Raid is expected to arrive on December 6, 2022. Fans can try out the expansion prior to its official release in the Test Servers that are live right now. Solis will also be available with Solar Raid for players to unlock.