All Rainbow Six Siege Operations: Timeline (2016–2026)

Rainbow Six Siege launched on December 1, 2015, but its season system began on February 2, 2016 with Operation Black Ice. Since then Ubisoft has shipped 42 Rainbow Six Siege operations across eleven years on an almost mechanical 91-day cadence — with a few notable exceptions that explain the gaps in every wiki and forum thread. This is every R6 Siege operation with verified start dates, end dates, durations, and the records most lists never compute.

Total Operations

42 (Y1S1 – Y11S2)

Shortest

Y10S2: Daybreak · 76d

Longest

Y2S1: Velvet Shell · 120d

Average

~92 days

Current

Y11S2: System Override · timer →

The latest open interval is included in the table. Current timing and the next rollover are maintained on the Rainbow Six Siege season timer.

How Rainbow Six Siege Operations Work

Each Rainbow Six Siege operation is a free quarterly content drop that runs roughly three months and is tied to a ranked season reset. A typical operation ships at least one new playable Operator (usually two in earlier years), a new or reworked map, a 100-tier Battle Pass with seasonal cosmetics, a stack of balance changes, and patch-level fixes to weapons, gadgets, and matchmaking.

Operations are named with a Y/S format — Y11S1 means Year 11, Season 1. Ubisoft has kept this naming scheme consistent since launch, which is why “how many R6 operations are there” has a clean answer: count the years, multiply by four, then add the released seasons in the latest year. Operation System Override (Y11S2) is the 42nd content drop.

The one true outlier is Year 2 Season 2 — Operation Health (June 2017), which shipped no new operators and no map. It was a full season dedicated entirely to server stability, hit registration, and a netcode rewrite. It still counts as a season — and explains why Y2 averaged a longer cadence than the rest.

All Rainbow Six Siege Operations — Complete Table

Every R6 Siege operation, newest to oldest. Start dates reflect each operation’s official worldwide release; end dates align with the next operation’s launch and double as ranked-season cut-offs.

Year 11 — 2026

Year 10 — 2025

Year 9 — 2024

Year 8 — 2023

Year 7 — 2022

Year 6 — 2021

Year 5 — 2020

Year 4 — 2019

Year 3 — 2018

Year 2 — 2017

Year 1 — 2016

R6 Siege Operations — Records & Stats

Longest operations

The 120-day Velvet Shell stretch was driven by Operation Health’s planned arrival as a stability-only season — Ubisoft padded Y2S1 to give the engineering team buffer time. Neon Dawn and High Calibre each ran long because the next season slipped past its target — a recurring pattern around Y5–Y6 when console-gen transitions disrupted Ubisoft’s release pipeline.

Shortest operations

Daybreak’s 76-day run is the shortest operation in R6 Siege history — Ubisoft fast-tracked Y10S3 High Stakes to align Year 10’s final two operations with the BLAST 2026 esports calendar.

Average duration by year

Across forty completed operations, the all-time average sits at ~92 days — almost exactly one quarter. Year 7 stands out as the most consistent: three of its four seasons hit 91 days on the nose. Year 2 is the only year that broke 95-day average, entirely because of Velvet Shell.

Crossover operators worth noting

• Y5S3 Shadow Legacy — Sam Fisher (Splinter Cell) joined as Zero
• Y8S4 Deep Freeze — first season dedicated to a new in-game faction system
• Y9S1 Deadly Omen — Deimos was the first villain Operator
• Y11S1 Silent Hunt — Solid Snake (Metal Gear Solid) becomes the second crossover guest

What Each R6 Operation Resets

Every Rainbow Six Siege operation triggers a ranked reset. All players drop to Copper rank and must win 5 placement matches to re-establish their visible MMR. Underlying skill rating carries forward — placements use it to land you near your prior tier — so high-ranked players climb back faster than fresh accounts.

End-of-operation ranked rewards (exclusive charms and weapon skins keyed to your peak rank that season) are awarded after the rollover. Battle Pass progress does not carry forward: unclaimed tiers expire when the next operation goes live, but already-claimed cosmetics are permanent. Cross-operation grind matters because the rewards lock to the specific operation’s pass — you cannot retroactively claim Operation Silent Hunt tiers once Y11S2 begins.

Current operation timing and the next rollover are maintained on the Rainbow Six Siege season timer; this article keeps the completed operation history and reset mechanics.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many Rainbow Six Siege operations have there been?

Rainbow Six Siege has had 42 operations since launch, from Y1S1 Operation Black Ice on February 2, 2016 through Y11S2 Operation System Override. The open interval is shown in the table; live timing is maintained on the R6 Siege timer.

What was the first Rainbow Six Siege operation?

The first Rainbow Six Siege operation was Y1S1: Operation Black Ice, released on February 2, 2016. It added Buck and Frost as the first DLC operators and the Yacht map. R6 Siege itself launched without seasons on December 1, 2015; the operation system began two months later.

How long do Rainbow Six Siege operations usually last?

R6 Siege operations average ~92 days — almost exactly one quarter. Ubisoft targets a 91-day cadence aligned to ranked-season resets, with seasons occasionally stretching to 100+ days when the next operation slips past schedule.

What was the longest Rainbow Six Siege operation ever?

The longest R6 Siege operation was Y2S1: Operation Velvet Shell, which ran 120 days from February 7, 2017 to June 7, 2017. It was extended to give Ubisoft buffer time for Operation Health, the Y2S2 stability-only release that followed.

What was the shortest Rainbow Six Siege operation?

The shortest R6 Siege operation was Y10S2: Operation Daybreak, which ran just 76 days from June 18, 2025 to September 2, 2025. Ubisoft compressed Y10’s middle two operations to align Year 10’s calendar with the BLAST 2026 esports schedule.

Looking for more season histories? See the all-seasons archive on the SeasonTimer blog — recent breakdowns include the Battlefield 6 seasons timeline and the Apex Legends seasons archive.

Data sourced from Ubisoft’s official seasons archive and Rainbow Six Siege patch notes, cross-referenced with our season records. Last updated July 17, 2026.