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Rainbow Six extraction

RRP $39.99

"Rainbow Six Extraction's ridiculous storyline and repetitive nature prevent the experimental spin-off from realizing its full potential."

benefits

• Fresh squad tactics

• Beautiful optics

disadvantage

• Nonsensical story

• Playing alone is no fun

• Repetitive Goals

• Frustrating Difficulty

Ubisoft's Tom Clancy games brand is in the midst of an identity crisis. What originally began with addictive tactical shooters like Rainbow Six and Splinter Cell is now home to competitive shooters with wacky names like XDefiant, Battle Royales, and now a Left 4 Dead-inspired co-op shooter where players battle an alien parasite .

Rainbow Six Extraction evolved from a limited time mode of the popular competitive multiplayer shooter Rainbow Six Siege. It's an attempt to bring Siege's methodical, team-oriented gameplay into a co-op environment while pushing the boundaries of what the Rainbow Six sub-series can be about.

Rainbow Six Extraction is a perfect example of the current Tom Clancy branded battle. While its more tactical pace stands out within the cooperative shooter genre, the lack of a compelling narrative and repetitive gameplay mean that the best aspects of the game don't get the time to shine.

Weak narration

Typically, Ubisoft's Rainbow Six video games are rooted in realistic military-tangential conflicts. We've seen this premise stretched more and more with every new game that uses this label, but Rainbow Six Extraction is officially jumping the shark.

A race of aliens called Archaeans and their Chimera parasite have attacked Earth. In response, several Rainbow Six Siege Operators band together to form the Rainbow Exogenous Analysis & Containment Team (REACT) in an attempt to fight back against this overwhelming threat.

Ubisoft doesn't seem to care much about the storyline of Rainbow Six Extraction.

REACT is led by three notable Rainbow Six Siege Operators – Ash, Thermite, and Mira. As a spin-off from Rainbow Six Siege, Extraction had the opportunity to expand Siege's story and allow us to get to know some of the most popular Operators better. We've seen Riot Games successfully do this for League of Legends champions via the Netflix show Arcane and spin-offs from Riot Forge that focused on specific characters.

Unfortunately, that's far from what we get. Ubisoft doesn't seem to care much about the storyline of Rainbow Six Extraction. There are only about 11 minutes of cutscenes (including a tutorial debrief and a pre-game movie). Most operators lack personality and the threat doesn't scale narratively in a compelling way.

If Rainbow Six Extraction had a compelling story, the ridiculousness of the premise would take a backseat. Instead, the game feels out of place in the broader franchise. Rainbow Six Extraction wants the gameplay loop to keep you engaged for the long term, not the story, but the results there have been mixed.

Same old grind

Rainbow Six Extraction has as much in common with Firaxis' XCOM strategy game series as it has with previous Rainbow Six titles. Slowly and tactically, players move through alien-infested areas, completing objectives ranging from capturing elite enemies to taking samples from nests that spawn archaeans. If XCOM was a first-person shooter instead of a turn-based strategy game, it would look a lot like Rainbow Six Extraction.

Another thing Rainbow Six Extraction has in common with XCOM is that it's excruciatingly difficult. Most Archaeans that players encounter are in some ways as powerful as them, if not more so. Some will explode, some will trap you in the spiky mud the Archaen leave behind, and some will just savagely attack you.

Rainbow Six Extraction's more methodical approach to gameplay helps the game stand out from its competitors.

Playing smart is required to complete just one high health objective, and each run has at least three objectives for players to complete. If the player fails, his teammates will have to extract his body. Otherwise, their Operators will become MIA and then have to be rescued and extracted during another run across one of the game's most frustrating objectives.

Most cooperative shooters like to focus on speed and bombast, so Rainbow Six Extraction's more methodical approach to gameplay helps the game stand out from its competitors.

While the tactical gameplay feels fresh, the overall package is flimsy. In total, Rainbow Six Extraction features 13 different objectives for players to solve. Players will see each objective the game offers within hours and then be asked to repeat them ad nauseam.

Various maps offer a change of scenery, and Rainbow Six Extraction generally looks great on next-gen systems. Still, these levels don't feel very different. As such, it's a tedious process of getting the same objectives in the same areas over and over again, with the only real variation being the randomness of enemy placement and order of objectives. The endgame variations don't add much spice either, as they just add extra steps to progression or limit the operators that can be used.

Whether it's more objectives to make the grind less frustrating or a more compelling narrative to inspire people to keep playing, Rainbow Six Extraction needs a better engine to keep players going.

Team up with friends

Playing with people you know allows you to carefully plan your next move, and the whole experience comes together pretty well. The MIA system also adds real bets to every player action. However, if you stray too far from it, the experience becomes much less enjoyable. It's no fun playing Rainbow Six Extraction alone.

While single player assaults are possible, the difficulty gets a bit too overwhelming. Operators are much more likely to die and become MIA, and rescuing a missing Operator is nearly impossible without dying when you're alone.

A cutscene with some operators challenging solo missions actually plays when players first try to invade, so even Ubisoft seems to know this isn't the best way to play. The next best solution is to go for quick play and do raids with random players, but that depends on the luck of the draw.

Some players will be cautious and communicate, while others will simply run off with guns blazing and ruin any strategy that Rainbow Six Extraction encourages. If you don't have two friends to play with, really consider whether or not you're willing to put up with these troubles.

A multiplayer-oriented game will always be more fun when played with friends, but games like Left 4 Dead and Back 4 Blood are still just as fun in single player or with random players as they are with friends. They also don't feel as ridiculously punishing and repetitive as Rainbow Six Extraction in single player.

An odd offshoot with good ideas, Rainbox Six Extraction feels too ambitious to be a Rainbow Six Siege expansion but too repetitive to compete with its genre peers. Rainbow Six Siege players may enjoy this change of pace, but even then the setting is so different from standard Tom Clancy or Rainbow Six games that hardcore audiences might feel alienated. Rainbow Six Extraction is competently done in many ways, but not compelling enough to be worth most players' time.

Our opinion

While Rainbow Six Extraction stands out within its genre and the entire Tom Clancy line of games, it rarely does so to its advantage. This extremely difficult experience becomes more frustrating when you play it alone or with random players. If someone is looking for a highly engaging cooperative game to play with their best friends, Rainbow Six Extraction may grab their attention, but its repetitiveness and horrible grind can get to players after a while.

Is there a better alternative?

The cooperative horde shooter genre is currently in the midst of a renaissance. I would recommend Back 4 Blood as a consistently more engaging and exciting game within the same genre. If you like the tactical nature of the game and the premise of the alien invasion, check out the strategy game XCOM 2.

how long will you last

While unlocking each operator, map, and mode can easily take 20+ hours, Rainbow Six Extraction has no final ending point and is designed to be played almost endlessly.

should you buy it

No. If you're a fan of Rainbow Six Siege or co-op shooters and have friends to play it with, Rainbow Six Extraction might be worth a peek at Xbox Game Pass. However, I would not recommend spending money on it.

Rainbow Six Extraction was tested on an Xbox Series X via Xbox Game Pass.

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