Rainbow Six: Siege's season pass doesn't have maps, but it will let you level faster

Rainbow Six: Siege's season pass works a little differently from most. You won't get exclusive access to new characters and maps, for example - those will come to everyone at no additional cost. So what are you getting for your $30?

The season pass gives owners one week early access to new characters, more opportunities to earn XP (called "renown" in this game), a permanent XP boost, as well as a bundle of animal-themed weapon skins and one VIP weapon skin. You can get a sneak peek via the video below:

The idea behind giving everyone free access to new characters and maps is that it will avoid splitting the community, i.e. you won't have one group of players who can't play with another group because they didn't buy a map pack. It's interesting, because that's the kind of content season passes used to offer. Now, the onus is on players - if you buy the season pass but don't chase after the pass-exclusive XP challenges, you're not really getting your money's worth. No one wants that, so it's likely to keep players invested in the game as well.

For a game like Siege and a publisher like Ubisoft, that's way more valuable than bundling together a bunch of map packs.

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