Alien extraction
There was a time where Rainbow Six KNEW precisely what it was. It was the gold standard for realistic tactical FPS combat; I’m going to sound like an old man for just a sec so forgive me. But there was a time where you could spend 20 mins talking over strats’ with your team before deploying on a terrorist hunt where one stray bullet could mean the end of your run. The amount on tension, and suspense that each game would give was really just something I haven’t experienced in a while. Fast forward to today where when anyone hears the name Rainbow Six, the first thing that comes to mind is the wildly popular R6: Seige and its pvp nature. I get why people dig it, but it never really felt like ‘Rainbow’ to me, and now after being this beacon of realistic combat for years Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Extraction see’s the legendary team Rainbow take on its greatest threat…aliens?!
Yup, surprised me too; but you know what’s crazy is this game can feel more akin to the Rainbow I knew from yesteryear with just enough of a twist to make it a unique experience. As we all know the Left 4 Dead formula of “few vs hordes of A.I.” has been done, and done again by quite a few developers to varying degrees of success. Well, R6: Extraction manages to take that ‘tried and true’ formula but also manage to inject enough ‘Tom Clancy’ DNA to make this stand out among its many peers. In the world of Extraction, Earth has been attacked by an alien race known as Archaeans. These numerous enemies’ players will face come in various varieties, as is the norm with these types of games. There are the standard grunts that will attack with slashes from their bladed arms, there is an armored gunner who will fire off some rounds and then cover their face while reloading making it difficult to take them out all the way to The Proteans, these beings can mimic Rainbow Operators and their abilities and are a pain to take down. Not to mention that ala the Zerg race from Blizzard’s (and Microsoft’s now) StarCraft, the aliens produce a black substance known as ‘sprawl’ and just like the aforementioned Zerg uses its ‘creep’ the sprawl will ‘power up’ the aliens if they are on the substance but debuff the players movement speed dramatically.
MSRP: $39.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PlayStation, PC
Price I’d Pay: $19.99
That’s a lot right, like it seems like the aliens have the upper hand? Well of course being team Rainbow, players will have access to operators and their abilities to combat the threat; it will just be up to them to figure out how best to utilize everyone. And that is where the kind of ‘sub-game’ comes from in this game, which I enjoy. Sure, the objective is to blast aliens, but do I want to be stealthy, or do I want to be loud? Do I want to break down walls, or try and attack from above? And with that it emulates that feeling I had years ago, talking over strategy with friends. Players are able to do that in Extraction; once matched your team of 3 players can decide which operators you all want to be, which skills and abilities and even guns are going to work for this run and everything.
And it is going to take finding a winning strategy in Rainbow Six: Extraction because going in ‘guns blazing’ or trying to be ‘Ram-bro” as we call it in my circle; will get you killed faster than mistakenly telling your teammates a room was clear before checking the door behind you. But I digress; the game is a bit difficult and every choice does matter. Indeed the ‘Rainbow’ DNA I spoke about earlier is the more methodical nature that this game requires of its players. It is an absolute MUST to clear rooms of nests (which can spawn more enemies and spread Sprawl if they are alerted), and enemies because it’s very easy to become overwhelmed. This being a spin-off of Siege, Extraction makes liberal use of the destructibility of maps. It’s not uncommon to think a room was clear only to have a Smasher come through the wall proving his namesake, which opens up a new avenue for enemies. The game is pretty difficult, especially for a Solo player, but working with the right squad those people who will play the game with friends will find an easier road to ride. Notice I said “the right squad”, sadly playing with ‘randos’ in this game can lead to more frustration than enjoyment. I can’t tell you how many times I got into a match only to have the R6 version of ‘Leeroy Jenkins’ run off shooting everything that looks alien. Just take my advice and play with friends… you’ll thank me for it.
The missions are all simple enough, and are procedurally generated which makes each run feel slightly different. Which is important because this game is a grind fest. As players slowly progress the very weak narrative, they will unlock other maps which help to break up the monotony but not by very much. It does help that these maps look especially gorgeous on the next gen systems. But again, just like its big brother R6: Siege; Extraction has a weak story tell about a few of Rainbow’s best known operators setting up it’s new team to combat the alien menace. It’s a cool premise, and one that is reminiscent of Riot’s recent move to take their more popular champions from League of Legends and give them spin-offs like the anime Arcane for a large number of champions or the recently released (and reviewed on this site by yours truly) Ruined King: A League of Legends Story. Unfortunately, Extraction is not as successful narratively as those other properties, but that’s ok because there is some fun to be had here, how much though really depends on the player.
I enjoyed playing Extinction, even with the randoms who were just trying to be agents of Chaos. But I don’t think I would spend a lot of time with it, these days with so many great games as choices it has become harder and harder to want to comment to one that requires a large amount of grinding. And that is what Extraction would require, as players need to level up to unlock gear, weapons and even levels. Unless it’s telling me an epic story like God of War, Persona or Halo Infinite anymore I just wanna get in, have some fun and get out. Which you can do with Extraction, again with the right group of friends. Other than that, with difficulty spikes as a solo player, and the unstable randos players will be bound to run into online, I don’t see this being much more…which is a shame because Rainbow deserves better. Pray for Sam Fisher.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.