Ubisoft confirmed today that Rainbow Six Siege's next expansion, Operation Para Bellum, will launch this Thursday, June 7 (or June 8 if you're in Australia). In addition to the two new operators and map, there will be a lot of quality-of-life tweaks to the game itself. One of these will see the controversial Tower map removed from Ranked play.

In an update today, Ubisoft presented six reasons for the removal. It's worth presenting them in full here:

Tower’s overall balance is not where we want it to be for a Ranked playlist.

Due to the size of the map, roamers have an unfair advantage as it takes a significant amount of time to drone and clear the map.

Our Level Design team direction lends itself to more vertical gameplay.

Tower does not include the competitive design learnings that we have applied to other maps, such as the buffed Clubhouse and Villa.

Many areas are too dark for optimal performance.

Difficult to play in a group that does not work together regularly.

These are all criticisms the Siege community have levelled at the map, so it makes sense to remove it from Ranked playlists – it'll still be available in Casual. And who knows, maybe one day it'll get a subtle remake, just like the one Clubhouse is receiving with this update.

For the full list of tweaks, additions and updates ushered in with Para Bellum, check out Ubi's notes. For a look at the new operators and map, here's Morgan Park's impressions.