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I’m dropped into some sort of government research facility with my sticky charges and camera drone, ready, but not necessa𒀰rily willing, to take on whatever sort of monster comes my way. As I make my way to the🐻 inside of the facility, I round a corner and immediately stop. A large, muscular creature stands in front of me patrolling the area. I slowly and silently sneak up behind it before driving my serrated combat knife deep into its chest cavity. The creature goes down with a gurgle, and I continue silently along my way into the depths of the facility.
My heart is racing and I’m filled with adrenaline – mostly because this is my second run-through of Rainbow Six Extraction’s tutorial section having died pretty much immediately during my initial campaign. I learned very quickly that stealth is my friend, and mo🐬ving too fast can cause certain doom. I’m already hooked.
The Rainbow Six franchise is one that I’ve never really taken to. Not for any particular reason, it’s just that I’ve always tended to gravitate more towards the Call of Dutys and Battlefields. Tha🐼t said, I did spend a solid month or so playing Rainbow Six Siege during the lockdown last summer, since there wasn’t much else to do. The phase passed quickly, though, and I haven’t really given much thought to jumping back into the series… until now.
Rainbow Six Extraction was finally fully revealed today during the Ubisoft Forward. I had the opportunity to check out a couple of hours ꧃of the game last month, and to be honest, once it releases, I’m can see myself playing Extraction for a very, very long time.
In Rainbow Six Extraction, you team up with two other players to take on an ever-evolving parasitic alien threat. The setup for each match is fairly straightforward: choose your operator and customize your weapons and skills setup. It’s worthwhile to work with your team to ensure you have your bases covered from a taꦆctical strategy standpoint. Maybe you’ll want a party comprised of Lion and EE-One-D Dron💦e that detects any enemies, Doc and his Stim Pistol to keep the party healed, and Hibana with her sticky explosives that can be detonated remotely. Your team composition is mostly dependent on your team’s playstyle. However, stealthy gameplay is by far one of the best strategies to go in with wherever possible.
Each match is comprised of three different objectives, including things like search and rescue where you need to find and retrieve a captured operative, destroying aliꦿen nests, or get samples to be researched, all the while battling different types of aliens. You don’t actually need to complete each objective though. After successfully completing an objective, you have the option to continue to the next increasingly tougher objective, or call it a day and exit the mission alive. It’s a high-risk, high-reward sort of situation though, with more XP being rewarded to you if your team successfully completes all three objectives. Sometimes, though, the smarter decision is to live to fight another day.
Everything carries over between matches. Let’s say you picked Hibana and your team dec🎃ided to exit after completing one objective. Any damage taken during the round will stay with Hibana. You can choose her again for your next match, but you’ll likely be going in with a health disadvantage. It might be best to play as another operator and let Hibana heal up over time.
The same goes for when you die during a mission. Whatever operator 😼you were playing as will no longer be available to you – the aliens having “captured” them. On your next match, it’s likely that one of your objectives will be to rescue a captured꧅ operative, which will be the character that you were playing as. The game does well to keep things relative too. If you died as Hibana, one of your teammates died as Lion, and one died as Doc, you’ll be rescuing Hibana, while your team is rescuing their respective characters. You won't be able to play as that operator again until they are rescued.
If you’re familiar with Rainbow Six Siege, you’ll immediately be at home ওwith Extractions tactical gameplay and combat. However, I picked up major Left 4 Dead vibes during the preview sessi🌺on, which is one of the best compliments that I can give. Completing each objective and running to the next safe room in time is intense as it is fun.
At one point, I got separated from my teammates who were waiting for me in the safe room, ready to kick off the next objective. I finally figured out where I needed to go, but time ran out and the door to the safe room closed just as I was about to run through. My mind immediately flashed to 🥀an image of the red safe room door from Left 4 Dead. That was the moment that I realized that Rainbow Six Extraction is going to be something special.
Rainbow Six Extraction doesn’t necessarily feel like a new experience, but it takes the best parts of Siege and combines it with a style along the lines of Left 4 Dead that is unique and refreshing. Back 4 Blood launches later this year as ♒well, so it will be interesting to see which game finds more success. If my preview session is any indication, though, Rainbow Six Extraction already has my complete and undivided attention when it releases on September 16, 2021.