When it comes to covering Rainbow Six Siege on the internet, there are two types of commenters: those with strong opinions about balancing decisions, and those who like to reminisce about classic Rainbow Six.
Despite never playing the original singleplayer Rainbow Six trilogy myself, through osmosis I've learned of the legendary exploits of John Clark, Ding Chavez, and Daniel Bogart—names left to gather dust in the Tom Clancy archives since Rainbow Six went to Vegas and became a 5v5 hero shooter.
Well break out your feather duster and alert your nearest CD-ROM appreciator, because Rainbow Six Siege's next season includes a nod to the original tactical shooter trilogy. Siege's newest attacker, the mysterious Deimos, has been unmasked as ex-Rainbow operative Gerald Morris. In Siege lore, Morris has been presumed dead since 2012. In real life, he hasn't been seen in over 20 years.
Series veterans might recognize Morris as one of the on-call operatives in the original Rainbow Six games. I hadn't heard of him, perhaps on account of not having a name as memorable as Ding Chavez, but he's been around from the start. An American demolitions expert from Birmingham, Alabama, he was a reliable squad member in the first three games of the series, making his last appearance in Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield in 2003.
Morris was unveiled this past weekend as the true identity of Deimos, a villain that Ubisoft has slowly developed in Siege's seasonal storyline over the past year. In a new animated short, we see the moment in 2012 when Morris, after becoming disenchanted with Rainbow Six's role in the geopolitical world, betrays Daniel Bogart and fakes his own death.
Morris' in-game bio includes a few nods to the original games, too. It mentions Morris participated in operations Mystic Tiger, Zero Gambit, and Steel Rose—the names of the final levels in Rainbow Six 1, 2, and 3 respectively (as noted by the Rainbow Six Fandom wiki). It also mentions "Operation Red Storm," an homage to Rainbow Six's original developers Red Storm Entertainment.
As an R6 member, Morris was a demolitions expert. As Deimos, Morris has evolved into a tracker. He's a 2-speed, 2-armor attacker armed with a scoped revolver and the DeathMark—a small drone that automatically seeks out a single target and reveals their location to Deimos. It's a very powerful ability on its own, though there are a few catches. Deimos' location is also pinged for his target (though it's a delayed ping, not a live one), and he can only use his revolver while the DeathMark is active. Only Deimos and his target can see DeathMark pings.
The idea is to play him like a duelist hunting down targets and picking one-on-one fights. It's a fun cat-and-mouse dynamic based on a few matches I've played with him, but I suspect we'll see Deimos players adopt a far more passive playstyle. Positioned outside the map, an experienced player could activate his ping on a roaming Caveria and relay her location to teammates without putting himself (or attacker drones) at risk.
Although Deimos seems set to be a roamer's worst nightmare, he's not without hard counters—Mute's jammers and Tubarao's ice canisters will disrupt the tracking, and Vigil can clear the effect with his personal jammer as well.
On paper, Deimos has all the ingredients of a popular fragger: He doesn't rely on others to get use from his gadget, has flexible secondary gadgets in frag grenades and hard breach charges, and his scoped revolver is a two-shot-kill to the chest. The only thing he lacks is a dominant assault rifle—he's stuck with the AK-74M, a low-fire rate rifle previously exclusive to Nomad that, for some reason, can't be outfitted with a foregrip and is limited to non-magnified sights.
You can try Deimos for yourself today by downloading the Rainbow Six Siege test server, which will be live for the next few weeks until Operation Deadly Omen begins on March 12.
