Tachanka has been the worst operator in Rainbow Six Siege for as long as Siege has existed. His notoriety was so well known that it transcended hatred to become Siege's most beloved meme. The meme was fun, but now, five years later, Ubisoft is committed to remaking Tachanka into an effective defender. Step 1" Give Tachanka a Flame Grenade Launcher.

Don't worry, his machine gun is still there, but it has become his primary weapon, detached from his tripod. The way he carries his huge gun resembles a maestro; the LMG delivers a powerful blow to the enemy, but it also has overwhelming breakthrough power. Making that power mobile looks like a lot of fun.

Tachanka's new gadget is a grenade launcher that creates pockets of fire on the ground, and as I told lead game designer Jean-Baptiste Halle at Six Invitational 2020, Ubisoft is looking at him as a solid alternative to Smoke and Goyo as an area denialist who could be a solid replacement for Smoke and Goyo.

"Right now, if you play him right, learn the angles, and know the best places to fire, you can deny pretty big spaces for quite a long time," he said. Halle also said that grenade launchers are intended to be more "spammy" than other projectile gadgets in "Siege," which probably means they carry more ammunition.

Although it sounds overwhelmingly powerful, the fire produced by the grenade is much smaller than that of a goyo or capitan. It may take two or three grenades to destroy a volcanic shield of the same area. Tachanka's grenades can be bounced, as can any explosive launcher in a video game. Halle says this mechanism makes his launcher "really fun to play with, but hard to master." Despite all the changes, Tachanka remains a 3-armor operator.

Tachanka is the first of what Ubisoft is currently considering a true operator rework; reworks after Year 5 will make significant changes to the operator's role. Small changes to an operator's existing role, such as the recent nerf to Jackal, are currently considered "adjustments" by Ubi. Hare did not speak specifically about when we will get the new Tachanka, but he is expected to appear on the test server sometime in 2020.

If you're keeping up with the big Siege announcement at Six Invitational 2020, read our hands-on with Operation Void Edge.