Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Extraction is the latest entry in the long-running Rainbow Six franchise. Originally announced as Rainbow Six Quarantine, Extraction pits the operators against alien invaders known as Archaeans. A cinematic cutscene shows these monstrosities spawning in New York City and destroying the Statue of Liberty. As they make their way out from the initial invasion site which leads to the ultimate collapse of society and alien infestation, the Rainbow Six Operators assemble to take care of business in this team-based multiplayer shooter. This may sound familiar to players who were around for a Rainbow Six Siege Outbreak event back in 2018. That event was the inspiration for Extraction, but the idea was taking that limited time event and building it into its own complete game with new environments and story.
The gameplay that we experienced takes place in battles called Incursions. Each Incursion is divided into three subsections of the map where one of twelve different randomly-generated objectives is assigned. These missions can include researching specific Archaeans to learn more about them, extract operators who had been essentially mummified on previous missions or simply kill a bunch of the alien invaders, to name a few of the possibilities. As players get deeper into the map and move onto the next objective the rewards get greater but so does the imminent threat presented by the different types of Archaeans. Parasitic mutations can occur too that can change the exact structure of the mission, so even if an incursion were to have the same three submissions randomly assigned to it, there would be enough parameter changes where it wouldn’t be the same experience.
The Archaeans are a formidable threat but going against them in teams of up to three players helps even the odds. Firepower is the primary way of dealing with these invaders, but each Operator’s unique ability is an important factor in team building. Some Operators have extra body armor they can share with teammates or have abilities to heal them. Others are more offensive based, such as setting out traps or using extra force to knock down certain walls. Building the right team is not only important for the current incursion, but Operators who fall and aren’t extracted back are out of play until they are retrieved from an extraction mission, and even if that horrible fate is avoided they’ll be hurt and it’ll take time over the course of a few other incursions to fully recover their health.
An environmental hazard that’s introduced in Rainbow Six Extraction is sprawl which is a gooey residue left behind from the Archaeans. This not only assists in creating a visual of the us vs. them situation, but also helps visualize the idea that the invaders are spreading out and claiming this territory. This also causes mechanical problems for the player such as reducing visibility and slowing down their movement. In some cases it can even be toxic. Eventually there’s an item that does an efficient job of removing this, but until that’s acquired shooting and hacking it out of the way is the only method to mitigate its effects.
One thing that stood out about Rainbow Six Extraction is that it’s entirely PVE with no PVP components. Being entirely co-op seems like an unusual approach to a shooter since PVP is so widespread in the genre, but to some this may sound like a fresh of breath air. The interpersonal communication is not only necessary for completion of the different objections, but makes the game more enjoyable. During the preview event the three of us discussed strategy for choosing characters and dealing with each section of the map while making dumb jokes about our playing. Sometimes we’d have to retrieve an object, like one of our mummified corpses for example, so someone could grab the body to take the extraction point where the other survivor could assist by shooting attacking Archaeans. The mission objectives varied, both in terms of actual execution of them and in how they might relate to the plot, but the general theme of each incursion was cooperate with your teammates while shooting a bunch of freaky-looking aliens which was overall a good time.
Rainbow Six Extraction is said to have twelve maps with subsets and some of the locations we previewed were New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas and Alaska. There will be 25 REACT tech gadgets in the game, some of which will feature new technology that’s specifically designed for PVE scenarios. Rainbow Six Extraction is scheduled for release on January 20 for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Stadia, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Amazon Luna and Ubisoft+. Additionally, players who need help convincing their friends to play can invite a couple of them to check out with the game with two Buddy Passes, allowing them to play the game with you for free for up to fourteen days.
