Since 2015, many of you have either played or are still currently playing Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege. For many, Rainbow Six Siege was their introduction to Tom Clancy games. Although Siege is arguably Ubisoft’s most successful Rainbow Six title, most of its players have never tried another Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six game. If you’re like us, we’ve been playing Tom Clancy’s games since Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas, Splinter Cell, and Ghost Recon. We can recall the crazy evenings and nights with friends as we’d play online. Fast forward to 2022 and we’re here with Ubisoft’s new release of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Extraction. Now let’s dive into our Rainbow Six Extraction review to see if it’s worth picking up or waiting until it goes on sale.
Over the last week, Marooners’ Rock member Andrew and I spent multiple hours playing the now-released game, Rainbow Six Extraction. This time includes the time we spent playing with other members of the media or Ubisoft staff. During our playthrough, we had missions where we barely extracted surviving with 1 HP. On other occasions, we completely failed the mission causing the operators we had chosen to go MIA.
Going into Rainbow Six Extraction, I was not sure how receptive I would be to the latest Tom Clancey game. Although Rainbow Six Siege looked like a neat game, I could never quite get into it; this is mostly due to my time with Halo, Gears, and Call of Duty. Between destructible environments, tactical gameplay, and control differences, it was something to try, follow, but ultimately put to the wayside. However, with the release of Rainbow Six Extraction, I’ve thought about giving it another chance. This is primarily because the operators from Rainbow Six Siege are in Rainbow Six Extraction.
Gameplay
Each operator in the game has its own unique abilities and weapon classes. As the player completes levels, the operators gain levels based on the experience earned throughout the mission. This experience allows the operators to level and learn new abilities, unlock new weapons, and increase proficiencies; however, if an operator goes MIA, the player’s overall level will go down. This can affect the difficulty of the levels and requires you to use a variety of operators to complete missions. Once the mission is done, the operator will either need to recover health or be considered out of action. This makes each mission feel important, makes the player use a variety of characters, and grows an attachment to the operators.
If a mission goes wrong and an operator is considered MIA, the next mission the player partakes in can have them rescue the missing operator. Recovering the operator will be no easy task but doing so will restore the lost XP. Players will have to rip out the MIA operator from a spire while fighting off the Archaeans and shooting the cables that bind them. Once recovered from the spire, you will need to take the operator to the extraction zone. Once there, the player has the choice to continue on with further missions within the level or to extract. By continuing, the player will earn more experience but face increased difficulty in the next area.
While out of the mission, players can purchase a variety of cosmetic upgrades from the store, use skill points to unlock new equipment, or change their character’s loadouts before partaking in a new mission. Although this makes the game a bit grind-heavy, it does not feel like a daunting task. You no longer feel like you have to grind to beat X boss but want to grind so that your characters will be stronger; this means you will have an easier time completing levels. In fact, the overall level system feels similar to that of the Pokemon experience system. Each character will still gain experience based on the tasks completed even if they go MIA. Operators who are MIA are in a stasis sleep until you rescue them.
Controls
During my time with the game, the only thing that really bugged me was the controls. After playing years of shooters with a certain layout, the game’s controller scheme was rather disorienting at first. I kept trying to throw grenades with one button and instead would use a piece of equipment. Luckily you can remap the controller for custom controls. After a short time of adjusting, I was able to complete the missions but felt like I would make the same mistakes over and over again.
Grinding Experience
During our playtime, we spent lots of time playing the levels of New York City and San Francisco, which range from Monolith Gardens, Liberty Island as well as a Police Station and more. Other locations you unlock while you play include San Francisco, Alaska, and harder areas as you play. As you play, you’ll obtain milestones, these milestones are needed to progress and unlock new areas of the game including accessing end-game areas. The Studies research tab provides players with experience and new data entries. Unless you actively focus on research tasks, you could easily forget to complete them and focus only on the mission at hand.
As you play, your operatives gain XP by simply doing the tasks each mission, these missions range from saving an agent, rescuing your MIA operative, scanning the enemies, taking down elites, and more. Each level will be broken into three parts, while the first area will be marked with one skull. It seems to be easy to complete, but as you progress the mission at hand will get harder and the next area will feature two skulls. and the third being three skulls.
Graphics/Visuals
The game features a high-resolution option to give players an overall immersive experience. Players can adjust the visuals from 1080p to 4k. Each creature has its own unique feel and you know what you are fighting rather than guessing what it is. The game utilizes black-light lights which can reveal enemies through the walls and their weak spots. The player can toggle between the UV light and other attachments. Enemies’ visual attacks and effects are easily noticeable.
The overall environment of the game looks crisp with no objects having inadequate resolution. No longer will you have to look at a low-resolution box out of the way. Operators have a variety of outfits to unlock/ purchases, which allows the player to make each their own.
Audio/SFX
Most of the game’s audio is standard for a tactical shooter. Each weapon has its own unique sounds based on the attachments on the gun. Special accessories also have their own little chirps when used. The game’s in-game atmosphere feels like you are on a mission but not one for survival; there is no intensity in the soundtrack. The game’s menu soundtrack tries to provide players with a feel of what to expect but can become overwhelming with some of the noises that occur. The game’s menu can have a screeching sound play if you sit on the menu long enough.
The game does pick up the user’s mic, so you will need to mute your squadmates if you are in a party.
Replayability
When playing through Rainbow Six Extraction with a group, it is an enjoyable time. Going in with either seasoned veterans or new players, the game can still be enjoyable. On numerous occasions, I could look like a god escaping the level with only 1 HP remaining after slaughtering a bunch of enemies on the way to extract. Sadly, playing the game solo can be rather lackluster. Missions feel like a chore and isolating rather than an attempt to help humanity. This game does not feel like it was created to be a lone wolf game. Yes, you can get the job done, but it doesn’t live up to the experience of playing with others.
As you progress through the game and unlock new levels, new difficulties become available providing an added challenge. Playing at higher difficulties will allow you to level your operators faster but at a risk.
Verdict
Rainbow Six Extraction is an enjoyable tactical shooter that allows players to experience their favorite Siege operators in a new way. The game does struggle from being a bit repetitive due to the grinding process, but having a team to overcome challenges with makes the grinding experience more enjoyable. Missions do not feel like they are do or die; you can either retrieve operators in a subsequent mission or have them return naturally with time. If you are looking for a game that will have you grind for end-game material then you are in luck; otherwise, the game will feel like you have to work for every milestone.
Our time with the game was enjoyable but could have been better. We look forward to seeing where it goes.
Rainbow Six Extraction is available on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Amazon Luna. It is free to play through Xbox Game Pass.
A digital copy of the game was provided for review purposes.
