Rainbow Six Extraction Review

Ubisoft has been hesitant to head outside its wheelhouse in recent years. It hasn’t been until recently, with games like Riders Republic and Immortals: Fenyx Rising, that they’ve embraced some new ideas. Ubisoft games have been formulaic for many years now, and they’ve managed to turn off many players who feel that each new game is just more of the same. I came into Rainbow Six Extraction with that feeling in my mind. I was a big fan of Siege and had played hundreds of hours of that game over the years, so it was exciting to hear how they would utilize that framework in a new PVE game. Unfortunately, it doesn’t translate as well against CPU enemies as I would have liked. 

Plot

Extraction explains a bit of its sci-fi plot through short cutscenes and codex entries that attempt to help you understand the giant obelisks appearing worldwide, which are unleashing parasitic zombies called “Archaeans.” These enemies were first introduced in the 2018 limited-time Outbreak event in Rainbow Six Siege. The operators you see in Siege transition to REACT operators in Extraction. It’s weird to see these two worlds blended, with Siege being a bit more realistic-ish while Extraction is completely sci-fi. 

Glorified DLC

Rainbow Six Extraction resembles more of an expansion to Siege than a full-fledged spinoff, and I would argue that even the $39.99 price point is a bit much. It feels more like a $19.99 DLC add-on than something that should stand alone. All operators are ripped straight out of Siege, right down to their special abilities, most guns, and character models. The environments are tight and mostly feel similar, with little variation and few exceptions. The levels are mucky and dirty, with ooze and liquids glistening in the hallways. Enemies range from bloated beasts to monsters resembling minotaurs. Your operator is encased in a yellow foam when incapacitated to preserve them. It’s all pretty unsettling in a good way. Extraction nails the dread that it wants you to experience. 

Gameplay

The gameplay focuses on co-op, incorporating mechanics from Siege and significantly slowing down the pacing. Stealth is huge in this game, and that was one of the things that I was looking forward to, but it just didn’t feel as satisfying as I expected. You can go through most of a level entirely silently, taking out everything without making a peep, only to face an objective that makes it impossible to complete that way. At that point, things turn into a run-and-gun game. That’s not what Rainbow Six is about; therefore, those situations feel tedious and far more complicated than they should, even on easy difficulties. 

Better With Friends

The best way to play is definitely with two other friends. You can play alone, as a duo, or as a trio. Extraction is at its best when playing with people you know. Playing alone was very dull to me. A significant part of the fun in Extraction comes from executing a plan with friends. If you’re not doing that, it can be basic. Even playing with random people can be a pain during some operations. If your playstyles don’t match, your operation will likely be unsuccessful. 

Rinse & Repeat

Extraction has four distinct zones, each divided into 12 levels. There are three random operations every time you spawn in one of those levels. It’s not like you’re playing through a campaign here. Every level plays out the same way, and it’s one of my biggest gripes with the game because things get old very quickly. Sometimes, you’re luring a tough Archaean to a trap; other times, you’re rescuing an operator or putting trackers on hives. The objectives are pretty varied, so it isn’t the same every game, but there’s nothing that gives you a break from the monotony, and after about an hour, you’ll most likely have had your fill. 

Risk vs. Reward

The one thing that Extraction does very well is that it makes you think about risk versus reward in a way not many games do. Once you have completed one of the tasks, your team can decide to pass through an airlock to complete another task or extract and bank all of the points you’ve earned. It can create conflict between teams. One may want to push forward, but the rest may be content with the experience they’ve earned. The extra caveat to all of this is that when someone falls to the horde, the other players have to carry their body to an extraction point, or else they won’t be able to use that operator again until they return to that level in the future and attempt to pry them loose. It’s a cool thing, albeit a bit annoying. If you lose all your operators, the game will return the first one you lost, so you’ll always have at least one at your disposal. If an operator is lost, they will also lose some of the experience they’ve gained until you level them up to level 10. Even health carries over between deployments, and sometimes, you must wait for an operator to regain health before you can use them again.

Little Lasting Appeal

As good of an idea as Extraction was, I don’t feel it’ll have the longevity to remain a popular game for over a month or two. It’s a grindy game that asks you to build up XP for each character (and allows you to lose some of it if you have a bad game) and complete challenges to even get to the other levels, on top of keeping up your overarching XP to do so. The only reward is more cosmetic skins, weapons, and skills to go through the same handful of levels doing the same handful of activities. This works in a PVP game where each game is dynamic, but in a PVE game, the AI can only do so much.

Final Thoughts

Rainbow Six Extraction is a good game in short bursts, but doesn’t have much replay value in its current form. I’ll be interested to see if Ubisoft can grow this game like they did with Siege after a very rocky start. Right now, I can’t recommend this one. I admire what it’s trying to do. It just doesn’t provide enough of a reason to keep slogging through it for more than a couple of hours.