R6 Vertical Play Guide (2026): Floors, Hatches and Rappel

Most shooters happen on one plane. Rainbow Six Siege happens in three, because the floors and ceilings are as breakable as the walls. A team that takes the floor above a site can open it and shoot down on the defenders; a team that defends under a soft floor without knowing it loses players to angles they never saw. This guide explains how Siege X treats floors, ceilings and hatches, the attackers who are best at playing down on a site, hatches as entries, rappel and the Advanced Rappel moves from Siege X, and how defenders hold against vertical play — and, since Noor arrived in Operation Split Fire, push back through the ceiling.

How floors, ceilings and hatches break

The community Rainbow Six wiki sorts every surface into breachable, semi-breachable and unbreakable. Floors are the interesting case: every breachable floor is semi-breachable. It has metal supports inside, so bullets and melee make holes and a Breach Charge makes a bigger one, but the supports still block anyone from passing through. Concrete floors don't break at all. Hatches are the exception: they are fully breachable, they open completely, and they are how you move between floors through the floor itself.

The wiki adds one detail that matters for defenders: guns with high destruction can shoot an unreinforced hatch open, and enough explosives open one instantly. An unreinforced hatch over the site is an open door waiting for the attackers to notice it. Reinforcing it takes 4.5 seconds from the floor above; our reinforcements and rotations guide covers how that fits into the pool of ten.

Playing down on a site

"Vertical play" in Siege usually means the attackers' version: take the room directly above the site, open the floor over the spots where defenders stand, and shoot or throw utility down. It works because the defenders' best positions on site, the corners and the spots behind cover, are almost never covered from above. The plan our coaches teach:

1. 01Drone the floor above first

   Roamers love that floor. Clear it before you set up there, or you'll be the one shot from the side.

2. 02Find the defenders below

   Drone the site or ask your droner where the anchors stand. Open the floor over them, not over empty space.

3. 03Small holes, not big ones

   A small hole gives you a sightline they can't easily use back. A big hole gives both sides the angle.

4. 04Pressure in pairs

   One player plays down while a teammate pushes at site level. Defenders who look up get shot from the door, and the reverse.

5. 05Utility down the hole

   A grenade or a gadget through a floor hole flushes a corner without exposing you.

The attackers best at this are the ones whose gadgets open floors from above. Ubisoft's operator pages describe them like this:

SledgeCaber hammer

Breaks non-reinforced floors and hatches; drop a grenade through the hole you make.

BuckSkeleton Key

An under-barrel 12-gauge with four rounds for opening floors and ceilings.

FuzeCluster Charge

Sends cluster grenades through any soft surface — floors included — into the room below.

ThermiteExothermic Charge

Wider than a breach charge: opens hatches, floors and corners.

AceS.E.L.M.A.

One deployment on floors, ceilings and hatches, reinforced ones included.

RamBU-GI Auto Breacher

A mini-tank that destroys breakable surfaces and devices along its path.

AmaruGarra Hook

Hooks to ledges and windows; the only operator who can go up an open hatch.

NoorHorus Lance Launcher · defender

Five projectiles that pierce floors, ceilings and shields, then burn.

Ubisoft's Sledge page has the classic trick, which it calls the "hot potato": stand on a breachable floor with a defender below, throw a grenade onto the floor and hammer the same spot right away, and the live grenade falls through to the floor below. Fuze's page says to place the Cluster Charge above a room with wire, traps or defenders and hold the line of sight they will run through, because defenders usually flee by the shortest route. And Thermite's page notes that his charge's wider radius also opens hatches, floors and corners.

Hatches: the vertical door

A hatch is the only place where a floor becomes a door. Dropping through an open hatch onto a site is one of the fastest entries in the game, which is why defenders reinforce the ones over their sites. The community wiki lists the tools that open a reinforced surface, hatches included: Thermite, Hibana, Ace and Maverick, plus the Hard Breach Charge. Ubisoft's Ace page adds that his S.E.L.M.A. deploys once on a floor, ceiling or hatch, and Maverick's page says his torch works on reinforced hatches too.

Hatches also carry gadgets. Ubisoft's Twitch page tells you to drop her Shock Drone down a hatch when you can't drive it in, and the defenders can put Kaid's Electroclaws on a reinforced hatch to deny the hard breach from below. Going the other way is rarer: Ubisoft calls Amaru "the only operator that can go up an open hatch", which means a hatch you opened for your own rotation can also become her way in.

Rappel and Advanced Rappel

Rappel is the attackers' vertical move on the outside of the building: you clip onto a roof edge or ledge and go down the wall to a window or a breakable outside surface. Siege X (Y10S2, June 2025) added Advanced Rappel, which Ubisoft describes as more freedom in how you climb buildings: you can now sprint along walls and move around corners on the rope to reach your entry faster. Operation Split Fire added a circular gauge around the rappel-entry prompt, so you can see the hold-to-enter timer filling.

EntryBreach on the rope

The community wiki says placing a Breach Charge on an outside surface adds an "Enter" option for rappelling attackers. Ubisoft's Sledge tips add that he can hammer while rappelling, even upside down.

SafetyInverted rappel

Sledge's page notes that breaching a door or window while inverted can keep him from taking damage from a defender waiting behind it.

AmaruGarra Hook

Hooks onto ledges and windows from a distance and pulls her up fast. Time it on a window for the Garra Kick, which takes out a defender standing behind it.

WatchRappellers are exposed

Our advice: a player on the wall can't strafe. Rappel where the windows are already droned and the defenders can't see you coming.

Defending against vertical play

The defenders' first answer to vertical play is not to need one. Our coaches' checklist for any site with a breakable floor above it:

• Reinforce the hatches over the site in prep, from the floor above. It costs one reinforcement and 4.5 seconds.
• Keep intel on the floor above. A camera, a roamer, a Valkyrie Black Eye: you need to know when attackers set up there.
• Know which floors over your site are soft and which are concrete. Play your anchor spots under concrete or under the angles you control.
• Don't stand still under a hole. If you hear the floor open, move: the hole was made for the spot you're standing on.
• Contest the floor above early. A roamer on that floor in the first minute stops the vertical plan before it starts.

Defenders can play vertically too. Bullets and melee make holes in semi-breachable surfaces from either side, so a defender can open a small hole in the ceiling to watch the floor above. Our anchor and roamer guide covers who on your team should own that floor.

Pushing back from below: Noor and Tachanka

Split Fire gave the defenders a real vertical weapon. Ubisoft's page says Noor's Horus Lance Launcher fires 5 projectiles that pierce shields and destructible surfaces before erupting into flames, and that they work through floors, ceilings and adjacent rooms. The mid-season patch (Y11S3.2, 13 October 2026) made him much stronger:

Fire from his projectiles now deals 14 HP, up from 12, after the same patch raised all fire damage. In practice Noor answers the attacker who plays down on your site: he can hit the room above without opening a hole and exposing himself. Tachanka's Shumikha Launcher also got a second mode in Y11S3.2; Ubisoft's Community Checkpoint recap says Impact Mode is now the default and Bounce Mode's projectiles pass through fragile objects.

Hearing the floor above

Vertical play is loud. Hammers, shotgun blasts and charges on the floor are some of the clearest sounds in Siege, and footsteps over your head sound different from footsteps on your own floor. Siege X's audio rework was meant to make where and how far a sound is easier to judge; our sound guide explains how to read above and below and turn it into a call.

Common vertical mistakes

Vertical play ties into everything else in this series: the drone guide to find the players below you, the gadgets and utility guide for the grenades you drop through the floor, and operator roles explained for where breachers and anchors fit.