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Destruction
September 9, 2026 at 01:08 AM
Initial version (2026-09-08)
Environments in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Tactics come apart. Ubisoft lists fully destructible environments as a core feature and describes three uses for them: creating new paths, opening unexpected lines of sight, and destroying enemy cover to expose threats. It is the feature the game carries over from its source material most directly, and it changes how the turn-based layer plays rather than sitting on top of it as spectacle.
Use | Effect |
|---|---|
Open a sightline | Breaking a wall creates a firing line that did not exist, letting an Operator shoot a target they could not previously see |
Remove cover | Destroying the object an enemy is behind strips their protection and exposes them |
Create an entry point | A new opening becomes a route into a building, which feeds directly into the Breach |
Change the map mid-fight | Terrain damaged during a turn stays damaged, so the field you finish on is not the one you planned against |
Shots and explosions damage the parts of the level they pass through. That is a meaningful distinction from destruction that only happens where you aim a demolition tool: in the demonstration mission, a long-range shot passed through a flimsy wall and killed the enemy standing behind it. Cover is therefore consumable in both directions. The wall you are using is being chewed away by incoming fire at the same rate you are chewing away the one opposite.
Because cover and sightlines are the two things the turn-based layer runs on, a destructible level means those two variables are never stable. Setting up an overwatch position that covers a doorway is only useful while the wall next to the doorway is still there. See Gameplay for the underlying combat systems.
Breaching charges laid on walls are the planned, deliberate end of the same system. During the entry stage you can place charges rather than routing the squad through existing doors, which means the building's entrances are partly your decision. That makes destruction a planning tool as much as a combat one, and it is the reason the reconnaissance stage matters: knowing what is on the other side of a wall is what makes opening it worth doing. Mission Structure covers the sequence.
Objective types interact with destruction differently. A hostage rescue in a building where walls can be shot through is a different problem from a target elimination in the same building, because in one case the thing behind the wall must survive. The mission types are listed on Mission Structure, and the environments they take place in are covered on Maps.
In a real-time shooter, destruction rewards fast reactions. In a turn-based game it rewards planning, because you can see exactly what a hole in a wall would give you before committing to making it. That shift is the point of the system here, and it is why the reveal material presented destruction as a tactical option alongside movement and abilities rather than as an environmental effect. Squad choice feeds into it too, since who you bring determines what you can open. See Operators.
Which materials are destructible and which are not, and whether there are indestructible structural walls.
Whether destruction is simulated or built from predefined destructible pieces.
Whether destruction can be used to reach otherwise inaccessible parts of a map.
Whether floors and ceilings can be broken, or only walls and cover.
Whether enemies use destruction against the player deliberately.
Whether destroying the environment carries any penalty on civilian or hostage missions.
Whether any Operator has a dedicated destruction tool beyond breaching charges.
