If you read my final impressions of Rainbow Six: Extraction, you’ll know that I’m not overly convinced by this Ubisoft cooperative shooter. Set in the Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six universe, this game puts players in the shoes of several agents from Rainbow Six: Siege who must work together to become part of REACT, a reaction unit who must attempt to defeat some form of extraterrestrial life , which mutated and invaded the planet, the Chimera parasite. Conceived as a first-person shooter, Extraction retains many of the core elements and mechanics of Siege, including environmental destruction and tactical gameplay; But unlike Siege, this is a co-op, stealth, and often horde game with muddy, zombie-like enemies. Needless to say, it’s a far cry from what we’re used to seeing in the Rainbow universe.
And how does the extraction work? Well, like Siege, the game doesn’t have a central narrative experience or campaign. There are simply four main locations to queue up in (New York, San Francisco, Alaska, and Truth or Consequences) where you must complete a series of objectives to gain experience and level up your agents to get more gear and to obtain items. That’s it. It might seem strange to boil it all down to that, but there’s not much else to do other than re-enter these locations to face many different species of Archaea (the creature the parasite transforms into) and a bit more from unlock ‘Tradition’, which makes the characters understand what this parasite is and how to defeat it.
Let me say that this style isn’t exactly promoting ora very satisfying gaming experience. The first few hours are fun as you unlock loads of new gear and face increasingly challenging situations that require more teamwork and strategy to earn better rewards. But eventually you get to a point where you keep doing the same thing over and over for no good reason. The game loop becomes boring and exhausting at this point.
As for the game loop, a basic level of extraction (I’m going to talk about the “end game” now) simply asks you to select one of four areas (each of them is divided into three sub-areas) to choose one of the four place at Assemble a team of agents appropriate to the challenge available in the difficulties and complete three main objectives distributed for each sub-area. This can be anything from rescuing a REACT scientist to capturing a large archaea to destroying alien nest structures. There are at least 10 different types of objectives to complete, some of them are quite similar (e.g. there is one that asks you to kill an enemy and take a sample of their body, while another just asks you to kill them ) and they are also randomly assigned. This means that you must quickly select the most suitable team of agents during the waiting period.
Similarly, in terms of gameplay, Extraction lets you play alone, in pairs or in threes, with a difficulty that adapts to each option based on the number of enemies, the size of the groups, and the types of Archaea. On one level, most of the extraction revolves around sneaking around, taking out nests, and vaulting without alerting them, otherwise you’ll be hunted down by a horde to mercilessly crush you, and the mission will most likely fail. Failure will result in the agent you were handling being Missing in Action (MIA), so you won’t be able to deal with him until you rescue him from his fall. It should be noted that while you can have most of the MIA team, you will never be without the opportunity to play as an agent is always added to keep you playing.
R6: Extraction focuses on Agents and features 18 playable characters, each an exact replica of their R6: Siege counterpart. Sledge is still smashing walls with his hammer, Ela is still with her concussion mines, Doc is still the healer, etc. Each character, like in Siege, has their own stats and abilities, meaning some move faster than others or are more resistant to damage. The combination of your weapons and abilities determines how you use them in an operation. For example, if you need to be extremely stealthy, we don’t think nabbing Tachanka for his 50-caliber turret is a good idea.
Well, let’s talk about the “Endgame”. Everything revolves around two central aspects:The quests and the Maelstrom Protocol. Both activities are played in trio and offer a significantly more challenging game experience through various modifiers and increased enemy presence. Of course, the rewards for completing these quests are also much higher. The other main difference between these two modes and the main mode is that you are expected to complete more objectives (up to nine in a Maelstrom session) and to make things even more difficult, resources are much more scarce: You need to be more tactical and strategic in approaching a level. Both modes are the best that Extarction has to offer, but they’re also a lot more complicated and will likely put off a bit for less-savvy players.
While there’s no doubt that Extraction is a well-made game when it comes to gameplay and graphics, I can’t say the same about its fun. As I mentioned earlier, the progression is completely uninspired. If you don’t like leveling up by doing the same thing over and over again to get slightly better items and gear to complete the two harder modes or higher difficulties, you probably won’t last long with this Rainbow Six.
This brings me to my biggest concern with this game that I’ve had since I first played it, and that is that I really don’t see how this R6 can hold up. It’s a title that won’t make you want to keep playing. Leveling up, unlocking new gear, discovering new stories…None of this is really rewarding after the first few hours. It’s a well-made game that feels very good to handle, and from what I’ve seen its production was so good that there are rarely any bugs or errors. in fact I haven’t met any. But will Extraction keep you playing more hours, weeks, or months after its release? Probably not.
It’s one of those games that goes perfectly with Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass. It’s an ideal title to cast with friends over a weekend or more, as long as you don’t mind repeating the same tasks. But what Rainbow Six: Extraction isn’t, of course, is the next Tom Clancy title to get your head around. This is clearly still the realm of Rainbow Six: Siege. Extraction fits into the image of coop zombie games alongside Back 4 Blood, but I don’t see it being more than that, and the truth is I find it a bit disappointing.