Rainbow Six Extraction review - the other side of Siege

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Ubisoft’s latest entry to Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six is Rainbow Six Extraction, a shooter built from the foundations of Rainbow Six Siege. As an avid Siege player, I was fairly confused when this 3-player co-op shooter was announced. After playing over 15 hours of Extraction, I remain in the same camp, as there are just too many missed opportunities here. This was a chance to expand what Siege started, but it feels more like an expansion to that game, as it banks heavily on group gameplay. Luckily, it can be a lot of fun when everything clicks. 

In Rainbow Six Extraction, a meteor landed in Mexico and welcomed us to the Archeans, a hostile alien species with a parasite that consumes anything it touches and creates horrific monstrosities. Since then, the parasite has slowly started to spread, and members of Team Rainbow join an organization called REACT, who have been tasked to take on the alien threat and learn as much as they can as it continues to consume the rest of the world.

The story…so far? 

Once you boot it up, Extraction quickly establishes the threat and introduces what you'll need to do in order to handle it, but it never really gets any kind of narrative going. No characters to hate or love. There isn't even a conclusion or some sort of revelation at the end to wrap up all of the hours played. Games similar to Rainbow Six Extraction (Left4Dead, Back4Blood, Alien: Fireteam Elite) generally have some sort of personality injected in them, or at least a cliche story to follow. Here, we are given some quick videos to explain the overall situation, explain certain game modes, and that’s about it. 

All the observations and insight you learn as you progress – even research data unlocked when completing specific tasks during a mission – result in just more context about the alien’s behavior and characteristics. Nothing significant. There's no broad strokes to really pull you in, and sadly no effort to flesh out the Operators you play, which are all Rainbow Six Siege characters pulled into Extraction, complete with their unique gadgets tweaked for PvE play. 

Pretty Great Gameplay, Guys

The gameplay loop is where the game shines, as it can get intense either solo or with a group of up to two other friends. Every mission has three sections, and each one can be finished between one and five minutes. It all depends on the location of the objective, the enemies roaming the area, and your loadout and Operator composition. You can either go completely silent, killing each enemy one by one, or go in guns blazing. A mix of both works, too.

Either approach is a treat to execute, and the game’s level designs have Siege mechanics in mind - breaking/shooting through walls, gathering intel with gadgets, reinforcing windows or walls, and so on. Headshots matter and getting hit can easily turn the tables against you.

Extraction is way more satisfying with a full team, hands down, but for lone wolves that love to tackle these kinds of games alone, solo runs are doable in every area on any difficulty. That is, except for the endgame modes, which the game requires you to do as part of a group.

What makes the gameplay interesting is the option to cut your losses and extract anytime during a mission. Operators will be marked as MIA if they go down and aren't extracted by your teammates, making them unplayable. The only way to retrieve lost Operators is to do another mission in the same area to pull off a rescue. It’s an added layer of tension I appreciated, as no one wants to lose a character they prefer to play. 

To spice things up even more, any damage inflicted on your Operator will be carried over after you extract from the mission, and the only way to heal them is to simply not play them, as how you do in the next mission will dictate how much health will be restored to your injured Operators. It’s a system that encourages you to play other Operators and works rather well with Extraction’s overall concept.

Servers could be a problem right off the gate, as I've experienced multiple crashes and lag issues when playing with friends. This is unusual as solo missions run smoothly, but once I squad up, error codes start to appear when we try to launch a mission. The quality of the game’s matchmaking is a question mark for me as I’ve only played with friends so far, so we’ll likely tackle this once the game is officially out to see how the servers fare with the influx of players as this game features cross-play and cross-save at launch. 

Grind, Level, Repeat… BuBut It's Worth It

Extraction slowly opens up to new ways to handle a mission with access to a good list of gadgets at launch that can make certain situations easier to handle. Operators level up separately, but it's nothing too complex, as leveling up improves certain aspects of the character from movement speed, resilience to damage, more weapons to choose from, to improvements to the Operator’s unique gadget.

Maps, higher difficulties, and game modes unlock through account progression, which felt tedious - once I'd unlocked two of the four locations in the game, the grind to unlock the next batch of areas felt longer than I would have liked. Then, once you unlock all four, it’s another steep grind through any of the 12 maps available at launch to reach the most challenging game modes available.

Extraction might be worth it, eventually

The Maelstrom Protocol feels like the overall goal to reach, as it’s tough, but rewarding. It felt like a mountain that I wanted to conquer with friends as multiple tries found us getting closer to completion. What’s fantastic about it is that it requires you to plan ahead since you’re tasked to do twelve objectives in a row instead of the usual three. The mode has a ranking system, and each week you’re treated with a new version of Maelstrom Protocol. Then, we have Wall-to-Wall, which is just a mission where you are just bombarded with waves of enemies before you can move on to the next segment. Both are challenging in a good way and I can’t wait to see how they evolve in the future.

Extraction is a game that is riding on the success of Rainbow Six Siege as the only thing different about the game is the alien threat the team is facing. Everything else is simply Siege, making it feel more like an expansion or an extension rather than a new game entirely. Gunplay and movement is almost exactly the same, with slight tweaks. If you don’t like how Siege feels, you’ll probably feel the same way with Extraction.

Ubisoft is playing the long game with Rainbow Six Extraction. More events like Crisis Events, something called Spillover, and more was announced in 2022. How those are handled, along with the big question mark of whether Extraction will be able to earn and maintain a strong player base, will determine if this is a game worth investing in months later (we'll be tackling those modes separately in the future). Right now, you’re not missing much if you choose to give this one a pass on release, but there’s definitely potential here, making this title worth keeping an eye on in the near future. 

7/10

Highlights

PROS

  • Decent amount of level variety and enemy types at launch

  • Satisfying gameplay that is further enhanced with group coordination

  • Challenging game modes waiting for you if you stick with the game long enough 

CONS

  • No sense of story or narrative. 

  • Leveling to unlock the best parts of the game can be tedious for some

  • Identity crisis: leans too heavily on Rainbow Six Siege mechanics and characters

What I’ve Played

  • Spent over 15 hours through multiple game modes

  • Reached Milestone 20

  • Tried every Operator and maxed out at least 4 of them

  • Completed all maps, tried every difficulty, and experienced all game modes available at launch

[This review is based on a PC review code provided by Ubisoft.]