LifeisXbox’s Rainbow Six Extraction review | A dangerous parasite has attacked the United States but there is little known about it. Luckily there are the familiar faces from Rainbow Six Siege who are coming to the rescue and helping you learn more about it in order to defeat it. I’m talking of course about Ubisoft’s new game Rainbow Six Extraction. There is a lot being said about this game even before its release last week, so I, as a Rainbow Six veteran who’s put way too many hours in Rainbow Six Siege, was excited when I got the chance to discover it on my own while answering the big question: is it a good stand-alone game or does it feel like a DLC from Siege. Let’s find out!
Most Memorable Moment
At one time I was playing a mission with a very friendly British dude. We were off to a very good start but during the last objectives, we got swamped with enemies and were holding our position rather than pushing forward towards completing the objective and going to the extraction point. After some time had passed he got downed and then it was up to me to drag his body across the map with only a pistol to use. And against all odds, we made it! The guy was constantly cheering through the voice chat and helping me with tactics. This is how co-op games should be and how everyone should behave in such games. This was definitely a great moment!
ℹ️ Reviewed on Xbox Series X | Review code provided by PR/publisher, this review is the personal opinion from the writer.
What we Liked!
- Story / objectives | In this new Ubisoft title you team up to research and fight off a parasite that is spreading throughout the world. In a Rainbow Six Extraction mission you work alone or with up to 2 other players to complete three different objectives. These objectives can go from capturing an elite target to tracking nests that the parasite leaves behind, rescuing a MIA operator (more about this later) and eliminating targets. Once you have completed 1 objective you can choose to extract or head over to an airlock to start the next objective. After you have completed 3 objectives there is nothing more to do then extract. While completing the objectives to earn experience points you can also complete so-called studies. Here you perform a series of small tasks within the mission in order to learn more about the parasite and its thread, which evolves in learning more about the main story. This definitely made the missions more interesting to me as a Rainbow Six fan.
- Operators | One of the things I liked the most about this game is that fact the operators are all familiar faces when you have played Rainbow Six Siege. They have the same weapons and gadgets which for experienced players definitly works as an advantage. But, you don’t have access to all the weapons immediatly as you will have to unlock them by earning EXP and leveling up the specific operator. Luckily the fun doesn’t just stop there! When you die in a mission there are 2 things that can happen. The first is that your teammates take your body to the nearby extraction capsule and thus saving your operator, who will remain injured. The second thing is that your operator gets taken by the parasite and you have to rescue it in another round by pulling it from the Arch Tree. I already said it a few lines back but your operaters can get injured. If you have taken damage on a mission, in which you, for example, survive with 69 health, this operator will stay that way for the next missions. In order to regain you health you will have to complete objectives that besides experience also earn you some health points. One small side note here is that when an operator falls below 50 HP it is injured and cannot be used for other missions. So there is a chance that you have 3 operators that are MIA and 3 that are injured, which results into 6 operators that cannot be used. Another thing worth mentioning is that you don’t have all the operators right from the start. While you progress through the game you will unlock extra operators until you have unlocked all 18 available operators (at the point of writing).
- Graphics | Graphically, Rainbow Six Extraction is doing the job exactly right. It might not be as outstanding and super special as other games but what Ubisoft offers you is good! Everything is detailed and they even try to provide you with some realistic features. The design of the characthers is good but this shouldn’t have been a very hard task since they are the same operators that are used in Rainbow Six Siege. One small sidenote here is that there are different maps but a lot of them share the same features which sometimes makes it so that it doesn’t feel like you are playing in a different zone. But like I said before, graphically, the game looks good and I’m happy with what it offers.
- Sound | Sound-wise the game offers a lot. When you launch the game you get a voice-acted cinematic part which explains the beginning of the story and when you unlock new content in the game the cinematics pop-up again every now and then. In-game the sound plays an important part just like in its predecessor Rainbow Six Siege where footsteps mean everything and sometimes a stealthy approach is the best way to go. But again Ubisoft has a lot of experience with this and as expected, they delivered.
- Unlocks | In the operator point I already talked about unlockable content while progressing in-game but this is not only the point with the operators. While progressing in Rainbow Six Extraction you will also unlock new zones to play and discover. And with leveling up your total score you also unlock new tech that can be used such as a revive kit, fragmentation grenade, nitro cell and in the end a react laser which offers some nice benefits while playing. Personally, I really like this about the game since it really gets me to the point where I want to unlock certain tech or weapons for operators which results in playing the game more and more.
Mixed Feelings
- DLC? | There is one thing that really gave me mixed feelings and I was really happy that I also heard some random players that got teamed-up with me share the same thought. The thought being that Rainbow Six Extraction feels as a really big DLC for Rainbow Six Siege rathern than a stand-alone game. It’s a bit like Elder Scrolls Online where you have a game but every year a new big region comes out as DLC with new adventures and options. What strengthens this feeling is that you play with the same operators which have the same gadgets as in Siege. And as I will mention in my next point, sometimes there are time-limited events in Rainbow Six Siege and the gameplay here often feels like another one of them. I actually really like Rainbow Six Extraction but I feel like many might not experience this game as a worthy stand-alone title.
- Play together | Rainbow Six Extraction is heavily designed to play with friends or at least have communication with your teammates. This makes it very fun if you have people to team up with as you can talk about tactics and how you are going to approach certain objectives. Unfortunately, with the game being released on Xbox Game Pass on day 1 there are a lot of players who have no clue about the operators, what they are doing and this can really ruin your experience completely. While you are going for a stealthy approach it isn’t always the best thing to have random players jump from behind you and start shooting with a shotgun. Or playing with someone who has no idea how its operator specific gadget works. This point adds to my previous point as sometimes the game feeling as a DLC of Rainbow Six Siege since the events that happened there were ones where you have to team up with friends and perform certain tasks.
What we Disliked
- Nothing | Sorry there is nothing that I strongly disliked about Rainbow Six Extraction.
How long to beat the story | 20 hours
How long to achieve 1000G | 50+ hours
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