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Rainbow Six Extraction is the kind of game that has a rough first few hours, especially given how much new players are expected to wrap their heads around. Whether or not complexity in a co-op FPS game is a good thing really depends on the kind of experience a player is looking for, though Extraction could certainly win both sides over.
When it comes to the gameplay, players can expect a lot of sneaking through maps and scouting ahead to discover objectives. Each mission in Extraction takes place over three interconnected maps, each with a randomly chosen objective to complete. Sometimes squads will have to sneak through a New York police station to take out an elite alien, other times they might be ducking in and out of more wide-open buildings as they try to rescue a fallen operative.
There’s a ton of variance in the maps on offer and the types of objectives for players to complete. Luckily, there’s a solid selection of Operators to choose from at the start of the game, with more becoming available as players advance through the game’s progression system. A good chunk of the game’s strategy is done at the Operator selection screen, as picking Operators that fit the missions is just as important as having a balanced squad. This also means that players likely won’t settle on a go-to Operator to play, though that’s absolutely by design.
One of Extraction‘s most interesting features is that an Operator who goes down during a mission is MIA and can’t be selected until players can rescue them. While this keeps each character feeling unique and also encourages adaptability, Extraction‘s biggest problem is highlighted by how often players will be swapping between characters. Players will have trouble mastering specific Operators early on, especially since the damage persists between matches, making just the simple act of surviving that much harder. The result is a lot of swapping between characters to find who works best for the mission objectives, such as using Pulse’s heartbeat sensor to find objective-critical alien nests.
While this complexity could be a problem for new players, one of the game’s smartest mechanics is doing a lot of work to prevent that. If players feel as though they don’t have the resources to keep pushing forward, they can locate an extraction point and leave. They won’t be penalized in any way, outside of losing out on the XP they’d get from completing later objectives. In many ways, this puts the game’s difficulty in the hands of the player, letting them learn Extraction at their own pace.
Enough time with Extraction is all it takes to start getting a handle on the game, which opens up the tactical side of the game. While it’s entirely possible to play Extraction solo, it’s a much more fun experience with a full squad who all have a solid handle on the game’s content. In that sense, Extraction manages to be a complex yet solid co-op game that still keeps the pick-up-and-play fun that games like Left 4 Dead and Back 4 Blood excel at.
While a lot of co-op shooters tend to put pressure on players to keep moving, Extraction gives a fairly generous time limit that’s always visible, meaning there’s plenty of time for squads to stop, talk about the situation, and adjust their plans as needed. That emphasis on tactics has garnered a few comparisons to games like GTFO, though it isn’t quite as brutal as that game has a reputation for being. As mentioned earlier, teams always have an out via extraction if things start to look too dire on a mission.
Another similarity to GTFO is how resource management ends up being a significant part of Extraction‘s difficulty, though there seems to be a focus on health management over everything else. The game seems to be reasonably generous with spawning items that replenish ammo, Operator abilities and gear, though health kits are few and far between. Doc is the only Operator unlocked from the start who can heal his teammates, which leads to him being a pretty strong choice for most missions.
When squads actually have to manage their resources, it emphasizes just how tense the atmosphere in Extraction is. The tight corridors of the interior areas lead to some pretty close encounters with hard-to-hear alien variants, while wide-open locations mean that teams are likely to run into an area that’s infested with nests. There’s nothing more terrifying in Extraction than hearing an alien getting ready to roar, alerting any nearby aliens and nests to a team’s location.
All of that said, resource management isn’t usually that much of a problem, especially given how much focus there is on getting stealth kills with a melee weapon on the aliens. It feels like completely running out of ammo isn’t a super likely situation, though that could also be a result of the game’s starting difficulty. The better players perform, the harder the game gets, so later difficulties could certainly tone down the ammo Operators begin with.
Rainbow Six Extraction is by no means an easy game to get into, but it rewards players who stick with it through the first couple of hours. The game doesn’t have the same broad appeal as something like Back 4 Blood or Left 4 Dead, but it has some engaging gameplay that rewards a well-thought-out strategy without punishing players who aren’t used to that kind of experience. Is it complex? Absolutely, but that doesn’t mean Rainbow Six Extraction isn’t worth the time it takes to learn.
Developed Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft, Rainbow Six Extraction releases Jan. 20, 2022, for Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Google Stadia and Amazon Luna.
CBR was provided with a review copy of this game by the publisher.
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