Rainbow Six Extraction review: endless grind without the payoff

Playing Rainbow Six Extract, Ubisoft’s co-op vs. AI spinoff of its competitive tactical shooter Rainbow Six SiegeThis is like playing the worst part of a great game. Although the mechanics are still outstanding, all of the new content feels almost like an endless stream of side quests for RPGs. They seem destined to take you to better things but don’t.

ExtractingPlayers form teams of three or more to accomplish Incursions. These missions can be found in 12 different locations and offer three randomly assigned objectives each time you load into another one. Each player selects an Operator and a loadout, and earns XP for their overall account and the specific Operator they’re using.

ExtractingBrings back favorite memories from the Siege There are 18 operators to choose from, which includes Smoke, Ela and Sledge. The game has a couple of non-playable operators, such as Mira, Ash and Thermite, to aid you with the cutscenes, missions and puzzles. But they are mostly reminders that there is more. Siege’s characters just aren’t very charming.

The game’s seriousness is shocking, considering that the absurd story of this game could have provided a fertile field for comedy. Extracting takes place in an alternate world where some of the United States’ biggest cities (and also Alaska) are overrun by an alien race known as the Archæans and only a team of Rainbow Six operators can save the day.

Image: Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft

A variety of Operators can be accessed with full-voiced voices Extracting might seem tailor-made for in-game banter, but there’s none to speak of. Every moment of every mission is as silent as a crypt — unless, of course, a character is calling out their next tactical move, like shouting “reloading” for the 400th time in a mission. While this can be tolerated in the initial stages, I was desperate for someone to give me one by the 20th hour. Single joke after I killed alien number 1,159.

The shooting is great, despite the dull tone. This is all. Extracting’s underlying mechanics come from Rainbow Six Siege and as far as realistic sim-lite shooting games go, it’s about the best there is.ExtractingOver a dozen weapons are in his arsenal. Each gun has its own kick and recoil, making spray control a valuable skill. It’s a shame Ubisoft decided to keep Siege’s weapon restrictions in place, however, which means each Operator has a character-specific arsenal that you can’t mix and match.

As its original material. Extracting Also, it looks amazing. Thin supporting walls get ripped with gunfire, sheetrock and concrete splinters wherever you shoot, and the creeping Sprawl, an alien-black goo that oozes across the ground and slows your movement, covers everywhere your bullets haven’t touched. While the levels were not particularly unique, I found them to be solid enough that they made it easy for me to return. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the enemies inside them.

It can be summarized as follows: Extracting’s aliens are boring. There are several Hives that can be found in every area of an Incursion. Hives will spawn Archæans if they’re alerted and spread Sprawl across the ground. Along with the Hives, you’ve got various enemies like Grunts, which are basically zombies; Spitters, which shoot at you; Bashers, which hit you a bunch; and the occasional Apex, which spawns other enemies. You can also find nine additional enemy types, but none are interesting enough to be mentioned here.

Image: Ubisoft

Stealth killings can be used to eliminate enemy weak points without their knowledge. This is why almost everyone can be beaten. Extracting You will slowly walk slowly, crouching along similar corridors and firing only one shot. It could have been a thrilling source of tension if this was intended as a stealth game. The discovery mechanisms are unpredictable and finicky. Occasionally, an errant footstep would give away my position from two rooms away — more frequently, I could walk straight into touching-distance of an Archæan before it had any idea I was there. This makes stealth seem more easy than difficult.

I finished the game in 20 hours and was just able to run through all levels. I knew exactly where I needed to be to avoid alarming my enemies. When I did happen to attract the attention of a horde of Archæans — a moment that should feel exciting and chaotic — the game instead turned into a muddy mess. Enemy animations stutter across the screen, making headshots lopsided and awkward, and I too often got pinned against the game’s awkwardly designed rooms and bludgeoned to death with no hope of survival.

When your Operator dies during an Incursion, they’re placed on the MIA list, which is one of Extracting’s better mechanics. You will return to the same zone next time and one of your goals is to save the Operator. This can be done through a fun minigame in which you retrieve them from an alien tree. This Operator cannot be accessed for Incursions until you finish the rescue.

To keep your Operator safe, you may choose to extract any stage of an Incursion. There’s no price for an early extraction other than missing out on whatever XP the rest of the mission had to offer, so this really never feels like balancing an interesting risk against a reward.

Image: Ubisoft

Extracting A challenge system is also available, similar to Call of Duty. It requires that you use certain weapon attachments and abilities. The system’s name is Studies and it is about as similar as you can get. Extracting specific missions. They’re location-specific, but because there aren’t unique mechanics between the locations, each Study is basically interchangeable with the others. There are over 100 of these in the game and they’re (sadly) the best way to level up.

But the Studies system — like everything else in Extracting — is a grind. Over 20 hours I loaded Incursions and completed the three Study Challenges. Then, I extracted. At the end of each run, I’d watch the XP counter tick upward toward a new piece of equipment I knew I wouldn’t use. Then I’d start the whole thing again.

Since all the advancement is linear, you will only receive rewards in a specific order and you won’t feel any stronger. Also, Extracting It is very boring. This could make it a fantastic game with more detailed missions. However, as it is, there aren’t enough random loot peaks or valleys that can make grindy PVE fun. Grinding is worth the grind for its promise of unexpected rewards. I could be tempted to wait for an Incursion just for the chance to win a rare reward, and random drops on weapons, upgrades, or any other equipment would have been a great way to make me smile.

Even worse, all these levels and upgrades always feel like they’re pushing you toward something cool, but once you get to the endgame, it turns out they never were. The “end game” is just more of the same Incursions, but with harder difficulties, a smaller pool of Operators (which changes every few days), and some modifiers.

Extracting’s grinding is no more or less rewarding than a clicker game. You can make it a great shooter with the right people. In the end, it’s not much more than a way to kill time until better, more interesting games arrive.

Rainbow Six Extract The update will go live on January 20th on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Xbox One. It is also available via Xbox Game Pass on all platforms. You can also get it on Windows PC through Steam or the Ubisoft Connect shop. Ubisoft supplied a code for the PC review. Vox Media also has affiliate relationships. They do not affect editorial content. However, Vox Media might earn commissions for products bought via affiliate links. Find out more. additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.