Rainbow Six: extraction is very, very serious. With the world in danger of being devoured by an alien parasite, the Rainbow Six organization is there to repel the invading Archaenans and save humanity. Ubisoft wants you to know that the stakes are very high and the mission is incredibly important. There’s just one problem: it’s hard to have fun when extraction himself refuses to have any.
I sat down to play a preview copy of extraction with fellow Polygon player Austen Goslin, and we both queued up with another Early Access player as our third teammate on PC. Each of us could choose from a handful of agents. Some of the gang out Rainbow Six Siege is here, with characters like Mira and Ash serving as supporting NPCs in the base; many of siegeThe other agents are playable in the field. A guy like Sledge is great for breaking down walls with his big ol’ sledgehammer, while Doc can heal his allies and serve as a team medic.
After my teammates and I selected our agents and loadouts, extraction let us fall into the field. We worked our way through hordes of archaeans to achieve specific objectives. It’s the kind of game that’s great for playing with friends – it’s meant to be endlessly replayable and offer tons of progression. Playing through an invasion allows me to complete three random objectives from a pool of 12. In addition, I have my own personal goals to pursue, like sniping a certain number of nests or killing certain enemies. The targets and enemies are spawned randomly. There’s enough challenge to keep you busy while still having enough downtime to fuck shit up with your friends. The problem is that extraction doesn’t do enough to outsell itself over dozens of other games in this niche.
There’s plenty of room for fun little story hooks in this game, though extraction was freed from pulp or silliness. It’s weird because games about fighting aliens or monsters tend to be silly. Halo infinity is funny and makes good use of enemy dialogue. left 4 Dead has a gritty setting but the graffiti and banter keeps the mood light. Even X-Com, a franchise known for mercilessly mulching your best soldiers, turns and winks at the camera from time to time. The aliens dress up and rejoice in their superiority; there are occasional jokes and I can give my army matching silly haircuts. There’s none of that in there extraction; all very stoic and reserved. At one point I finished a mission with fellow Polygon player Austen Goslin and the support NPC Ash congratulated us. “We can now raise more private funds,” she said, and we erupted in heckling. Private financing? It doesn’t exactly get the adrenaline pumping.
extraction maintains that serious tone throughout. The agents don’t joke with each other, nor do they really have significant differences outside of their skills. siege is full of colourful, distinctive characters like Warden, a US Secret Service agent with smart glasses and a diseased mustache, or Flores, a jewel thief with a long line of successful antics. None of these inventive visual designs are on display in extraction; each is decked out in heavy armor only. They certainly don’t take the time to chat to each other and reveal personality quirks or backstories, though each level is punctuated by airlocks that take a long time to open.
I spent my time with extraction I was hoping for something substantial to chew on, and there was certainly plenty of shooting and questing to do. But the game is also bone dry, because both sides are made entirely of cardboard. Aliens are just like that there, and people aren’t much better.
