Back at work following the holiday, Ubisoft Montreal is promising all Rainbow Six Siege players relief from a handful of issues currently plaguing the tactical shooter and disrupting the online experience.

According to a recent forum post from the studio, two patches are in the works for January, both of which will launch first for PC and then consoles upon further testing. The first, Update 1.2, is scheduled to hit PC today, January 7, and then consoles on January 14. Update 1.3 will deploy mid-January on PC and end of January for consoles. With these, Ubisoft hopes to fix the following issues:

• Error 41 – Most recurrent PvP connection error
• Extended matchmaking connection time – Irregularly long loading time for some players (especially in Ranked).
• Failed data synchronization – Failed data screen resulting, in some cases, to no renown being issued at the end of a match.
• Loading screen freeze (smoke background) – Some players get stuck in a screen when loading a match.
• Game exploit in which Defenders are able to go outside during the preparation phase (bypassing the red wall).
• Party of 4 Matchmaking – Some users experience much longer matchmaking times if they try to matchmaking with a party of 4 players.

In February, Update 2.0 will mark the beginning of Siege’s first season of content.

Recently, we learned that the shooter’s first round of downloadable content, Black Ice, has been put on hold for a short while. Originally meant to launch some time in January, Season Pass holders will get first dibs on the DLC this February 2.

@MarsCaturix Operation Black Ice will be released on 2nd February for Season Pass holders, thanks.

— Rainbow Six (@Rainbow6Game) January 4, 2016

According to the studio’s post-launch roadmap, upcoming Siege content includes new operators, maps, weapons, game modes, cosmetic items, and “exclusive seasonal content and events.” Siege’s first DLC, Black Ice, will feature operators from the Canadian Joint Task Force 2 along with one new map, new gameplay upgrades, new seasonal player skins, and more.

Hopefully, Siege’s current troubles aren’t affecting your enjoyment too much. At the very least, it’s nice to see Ubisoft Montreal keeping its fans in the loop. Here’s to hoping everything will be sorted out by the end of this month.

UPDATE: Here are the official patch notes for Update 1.2, now live on PC and coming soon to consoles.

General Tweaks and Improvements

HIT REGISTRATION IMPROVEMENTS

Updated the server tick rate for all PC users, coming soon to consoles

With the goal of improving positioning and shooting replication, we had deployed a first update on PC in which the player position update rate is set to 60 times per second (vs. the previous 30). This change however has been done in an intermittent fashion and in certain regions only, as we were testing various configurations. We are now satisfied with its state so we are now deploying this update to all PC users. As soon as this feature has been validated with this more massive test on PC, we will be deploying this update on consoles as soon as possible.

Data center selection is now possible (PC users only, for now)

PC users can change their default data centers in the Rainbow Six game settings file (gamesettings.ini), which is usually located in the ‘My Documents\My Games\your Uplay ID’ folder. Change the DataCenterHint value from ‘default’ to the region’s short name that you wish to have as your default data center. The available region short names can be found just above the DataCenterHint line.

Note that we are planning to eventually expose this in the in-game UI for all platforms and this PC-exclusive feature is only a first step.

MATCHMAKING IMPROVEMENTS

• Refining the quality of PVP matches with more evenly matched opponents
• Added a criteria that increases the odds of pre-made parties being matched against a squad with an equal number of pre-made parties within them.
• Skill criterion originating from the player’s region is now more precise.

IMPROVED CONNECTIVITY TO PVP AND PVE MATCHES

• Increased match quality by ensuring players using the same data center get matched together, leading to better ping.
• Improved accuracy of the estimated waiting time while in lobby.

Top Community-Raised Bug Fixes

Please be aware that this is not an exhaustive list and that we are only highlighting fixes that were done about the most commonly raised community bugs.

GAMEPLAY FIXES

• Ranked matches HUD synch with Casual update has been applied (read: playlist changes from this post).
• Did some fixes on an issue in which players would get stuck when walking, running or at the end of a rappel. The player could do other actions and rotate but couldn’t move.
  • Some situations still cause this bug. It is a work in progress.

LEVEL DESIGN FIXES

• Kanal: fixed a bug in which the red blocker wall was not present on a window in the holding room for Defenders and allowed them to exit their zone during the preparation phase.
• Some lighting issues on maps have been fixed.
• Some minor collision issues have been fixed on House, Clubhouse, Kanal and Russian Café.

ONLINE FLOW FIXES

• Fixed Error [3-0x0001000B].
• Partial fix of Error [2-0x00000041]. Refer to Top Issues in the Known Issues post for full information.
• Partial fix of the loading screen freeze (smoke background). Refer to Top Issues in the Known Issues post for full information.

UI FIXES

• Player skill rank display has been re-activated.
• Authentication pop-up title had inconsistent spacing.

AUFIO FIXES

• XB1: Fixed a bug in which if a player constrained the game, snapped an app, then unconstrained the game, he or she would lose the voice chat.
• XB1: Fixed a bug in which the game did not exhibit any audio whilst the player had any app snapped.

OTHER FIXES

• The Season Passes temporary activation for everyone for issue identification purposes has now ended, see this post for more details.
• Fixed a bug in which the Tier 5 faded skin for the FBI’s 5.7 USG pistol didn’t unlock even after purchasing it.