Rainbow Six Extraction Review

Frank Vermeij

The gaming industry has also been hit hard during the corona period, Rainbow Six Extraction is no exception. In 2019, the game was announced as Rainbow Six: Quarantine with a release date in 2020. The game was delayed for over a year for extra development time and the name changed to Rainbow Six Extraction. With this extra year, expectations among the fans went up. In my opinion, this extra year of development time is not noticeable in the final product.

Rainbow Six Extraction has been skeptical from the start, mainly because the game is based on a limited-time play mode of Rainbow Six Siege. What Ubisoft has accomplished with Siege is nothing short of an impressive feat. That game is now entering its seventh year and there is no sign of stopping. You play in Extraction as the operators (playable characters) from Rainbow Six Siege, but in a completely different setting and with a completely different end goal. In Siege you play in teams of four against each other and having a strategy and communication with your teammates is a basic element of the game. Playing against real players like in Siege is called PvP (Player vs Player). The gameplay of Extraction is based on PvE (Player vs Environment). You play in teams of three against enemies controlled by the game itself. These enemies are mutants of the Chimera parasite. The game uses a number of cutscenes and information that you unlock through studies what exactly is going on with this parasite. The parasite is of extraterrestrial origin and has broken out in a number of locations, such as San Francisco, Alaska and New York. Quarantine zones have been created from these infected areas in which the parasite is being researched by REACT, a branch of Rainbow.

Highlights
The cutscenes are nicely designed, but unfortunately do not involve you in the story. The studies are a good addition. You must complete three objectives per study to unlock new information. The objectives can range from something as simple as scanning an enemy to taking out an enemy with a specific weapon or device. In this way, players are motivated to use new weapons and gadgets while learning more about the origin of the parasite. Another highlight is the progression system of the game. You have a general progression system, with every level you go up you get new gadgets, adjustments for your weapons, operators and new locations. In addition, each operator has its own progression system. With each level you level up for an operator, you unlock new weapons and outfits for that specific operator.

Additions
The game also presents a new idea with an operator going MIA (Missing in action). If you’re working on a incursion (mission), you have the chance to lose the operator you are playing with if you die during the mission. You’ll have to come back later to rescue this operator. This addition increases the tension during the mission, as there is a consequence if you lose. This system would work well if the missions themselves were more balanced. Even with a communicating team, the difficulty was sometimes too high. At a certain point it was much nicer if I only did missions, because the game adapts to the number of players. It was just fine to do, but the missions you perform have been reused so often in other games that it quickly got boring. Think of defending an objective, conquering certain places on the map and depositing explosives. The missions like recovering an operator who is MIA is a fun and newer kind of mission though. Only the constant loss and retrieval of one operator leads to frustration, instead of motivation to use another one, for example. The missions that stand out are the kind of boss fights against proteans, a special mutant of the parasite. However, you can unlock these missions late.

Conclusion
All in all, the elements that Extraction borrows from its bigger brother Siege are well implemented here. The progression system is also a good addition. However, the game could have been better served as an expansion of Siege, unfortunately it doesn’t justify a separate release due to the lack of variety in the missions and the imperfect MIA system. I do foresee a bright future for the game, Rainbow Six Siege also didn’t have an optimal launch and we know how successful that game has become thanks to improvements and additions. I hope a similar development for Rainbow Six Extraction, at least it has the potential.

Rainbow Six Extraction

2.5 star

+ good progression system
+ elements of Siege are well conveyed
+ protean missions

– MIA System
– too many repetitive missions
– lack of a good story
– missions are not well balanced in difficulty