Ubisoft is making some changes to the way that patches will work moving forward for Rainbow Six Siege, specifically the foundation that they are built on, and that's going to require a sizable download for Season 3's upcoming patch.

The Year 2 Season 3 patch will fundamentally change how data is organized in the game. Essentially all of the data that had been previously added needs to be removed and re-compressed.

Patching normally includes adding in modified files to the base data, without removing them. This allows patches to be smaller –and therefore faster– for players to download. The developers explained the downside of this in their latest Dev Blog:

"Over time however, it leads to a lot of wasted space on disk, as there are more and more modified files. In the Y2S3.0 patch, since we changed many existing textures, we decided that we need to consolidate our forges. The impact of this will result in a smaller overall footprint on your hard drive, taking up less space."

In addition to taking up less space, the consolidation of information will also lead to faster loading times for all players, with console loading times being approximately 10% faster. Similarly, all patches going forward after Season 3's initial drop will be decreased in size by roughly 12-15%. You can find a table with the estimated patch sizes by platform below.

Season 3 Patch Size

As far as patches go, these files are going to take a while to download if your internet isn't up to par. But the promise of faster loading times and smaller patch sizes going forward will likely please most players in the long run. You can read more about Rainbow Six Siege here, including the game hitting 20 million registered players, as well as the introduction of alpha packs to the game.