Last year, Rainbow Six Esports announced the new Reload competition — now, it’s revealed key details, like the new format and more for players and fans to get prepared.
The Rainbow Six Reload competition will center around a Bullet system. Bullets are a scoring resource that teams will use to show off their ranking and survival in the competition. The number of Bullets in a team’s reserve determines its standing.
At the start of each match, teams will “Reload” their chambers, ie, they’ll commit Bullets. The team that wins will get their Bullets back along with additional Bullets, while the teams that lose will lose the Bullets. Teams can offer up Bullets based on the amount that their opponent has. Teams can even offer up more bullets than they have — however, if they lose and go negative, they’ll be automatically eliminated.
There are also special Cards that do a variety of things to influence the competition, like provide more Bullets, help get around touch matchups, and even make game-changing decisions. These Cards, and how to use them, will be very important for teams to look at.
The Special Cards are as follows:
- Automatic Triggers
- Survivor: teams that have one Bullet going into a match win an additional Bullet if they win
- Flawless Victory: teams that win a match without losing a round will earn two extra Bullets
- Eliminator: teams that eliminate another team will earn an extra Bullet
- Single Use:
- Chicken: teams can refuse on direct challenge in rounds two, three, and four
- Duel: teams that are about to be eliminated can challenge another team to a one-versus-one to earn bullets in round three to reset their Bullet reserve to 0
- Extended Mag: teams can increase their reload by four Bullets in rounds three, four, and five
The Reload format will have two phases: the Group Stage and Playoffs.
At the start of the Group Stage, every team will have six bullets in its reserve. There will be five rounds of matches, and teams will choose their opponents, starting with the lower-ranked teams (though the same opponent cannot be chosen twice). Each of these matches will be a best-of-one, so the stakes of each match are very high.
In the first two rounds, teams can Reload up to two Bullets. In the rest of the rounds, teams can Reload up to eight Bullets.
At the end of rounds four and five, the top four and bottom four on the Leaderboard will automatically qualify for the playoffs or be eliminated, respectively.
The Playoffs take the top eight teams to a single-elimination bracket. The quarterfinals and semifinals will be a best-of-three, while the final will be a best-of-five.
The Schedule for the Rainbow Six Reload Competition, which has a prize pool of €480,000, is as follows:
- Group Stage: May 10-14 (each day is dedicated to a round of competition)
- Playoffs: May 16-18 (each day is dedicated to quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals)
Tickets are already up for the competition, which will be held in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.
2025 is seeing several changes for Rainbow Six esports, which fans can look into here. Additionally, Rainbow Six Siege will appear at the 2025 Esports World Cup for more thrilling competition.