Half a tick into my first round of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Extraction, a squadmate is in critical condition. They split off from our group early, leading to a swarm of gangly, misshapen humanoid husks. The rest of us have two options: risk everything and go in guns blazing to save our buddy from a grisly fate, or gather up what we can and dip out before anyone else eats dirt.
We choose the latter.
That’s the tightrope Rainbow Six Extraction trepidatiously walks, one where inches miraculously sprawl into miles due to how thick the air is with tension. This tactical three-player cooperative first-person shooter from Ubisoft Montreal splices Back 4 Blood’s ferocious firefights against swarms of monstrous mutants with the punishing fail states of Hades to curious results. After a six-hour-long hands-on preview event, I came away thinking that there might be something to this parasitic mix.
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Like virtually everyone else, I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at Rainbow Six Extraction’s supernatural, sci-fi-lite elements. While Ubisoft has undoubtedly softened the Tom Clancy brand’s image as a true-to-life military simulator over the years, few would guess it would veer into straight-up infected boogeymen territory. Marc-André Clermont, level design director on Rainbow Six Extraction, tells me the team didn’t simply didn’t care to limit their imagination for realism’s sake.
“When it comes to this new threat that is the parasite, we wanted to unburden ourselves from certain realistic elements typically found under the Tom Clancy umbrella,” Clermont explains. “It remains true to the tactical experience of [Rainbow Six Siege] and the strategy that operator characters bring, but the parasite let our team come up with new and interesting experiences for players.”
I’ve never given Rainbow Six Siege anything more than passing admiration for its calculated, vertical shootouts, so I can’t speak on whether or not Rainbow Six Extraction is up to its forbearer’s tactful standards. It’s by no means a shooting gallery, though, especially on more challenging difficulties. Enemies skulk about hallways, eager to sink their teeth into the jugular of anyone that carelessly walks around without employing a bit of stealth. Left 4 Dead this is not, and the serpentine nature of levels means you’ll have to peek around corners in a crouched position to gain any ground.
“We took some inspiration from some excellent games in the genre for sure, but we wanted to create this PvE tactical experience that was true to Rainbow Six,” Clermont says. “So everything is a little bit more tight-knit compared to some other titles. It means small, close-quarters encounters where your gun might not be the best answer.”
There’s an aroma of the unknown that permeates every match of Rainbow Six Extraction. While missions open with brief explainers outlining what an objective may entail, be it retrieving specimens, destroying tumor-like hive clusters, or simply capping every infected in the head — it’s not enough for you to be overly prepared. There’s a randomized element to each excursion that spices things up.
“At the very beginning when we were creating levels, there was a clear linear path, but before long, it was obvious that sort of mission structure was not true to how an extraction should play,” Clermont explains. “We wanted players to go about things differently each time, which meant we added procedural generation when it comes to level intrusion, objectives, and the types of enemies you’re going to face.”
As I combed through one industrial office building after the other in search of tissue samples or infected in dire need of some lead aspirin, a peculiar roguelike rhythm began to reveal itself to me. Before every mission, you must choose an operator, each of which has its own unique set of abilities along with a soft tank/healer/DPS role. My go-to operator was Hibana, an assassin who’s particularly well-suited for taking out foes with thick hides thanks to her remote explosives. Tweaking a character’s toolkit is possible before a mission, but with that freedom comes consequences: should your operator go down and no teammates pick you up, that character will be unavailable until someone rescues them in another mission.
“Roguelikes were definitely a strong inspiration for us during development,” Clermont states. “We thought there wouldn’t be any need for tactics if there without any risk or tension. The concept of characters going missing in action or losing your operator, putting everything on the line, was there from the very beginning. We’re not saying it’s a full-on roguelike compared to other titles, but similar to that genre, every time you put everything on the line. It creates interesting moments between teammates where everyone goes, ‘do we go a few more rooms, or stop here?’ This ties into Rainbow Six Extraction’s name; it all comes together for a risk vs. reward concept.”
When an extraction point is often all the way back at a mission’s spawn point, turning tail often left me feeling overcome with doubt. Sure, escaping yields some extra experience points to beef up your operator’s stats, but it’s hard not to believe that had my teammates and I pushed a bit farther, we could’ve reaped much better rewards. Thinking back on when the game’s original title of Rainbow Six Quarantine, the folks over at Ubisoft Montreal couldn’t have come up with a better new title, even if the circumstances behind the name change weren’t the most gracious.
“The name Rainbow Six Quarantine came before the pandemic happened,” Clermont states. “So we wanted to change it due to that reason. However, the core game loop, the ‘extraction’ pillar, and all the elements surrounding it embody the game much more. ‘Rainbow Six Extraction’ is a better name in every sense.”
My only big gripe with this concept is Ubisoft Montreal isn’t taking it far enough because if all of your operators go missing in action, they are miraculously playable again. Sure, it would be problematic if you couldn’t play anymore because every operator is six feet under, but some of the tension somewhat disappears when the magic holding Rainbow Six Extraction together is revealed as little more than a cheap parlor trick.
There’s been a distinct lack of excitement for Rainbow Six Extraction, and it’s not hard to see why. On the surface, it’s just a strange co-op shooter that happens to use the Tom Clancy license. Yet its risky, dip-or-die ebb and flow could lead to something well worth clocking loads of hours in with friends if it can keep the formula interesting as time goes on. We’ll find out when Rainbow Six Extraction releases on Jan. 20 for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox Game Pass, and PC.
Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.
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