Ubisoft knows well how to create a hooking service, and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Extraction was another attempt to entice people and not let go. But will it be able to repeat the success of Rainbow Six Siege, which surprised even the developers themselves? This is an interesting question, because the novelty turned out quite different from what we expected.
Whether a direct sequel or a spin-off, Rainbow Six Evacuation takes the ideas laid down by the Outbreak mode for Siege and tells about an alien plague that threatens to end humanity. Well, how “tells” – rather shows in a couple of splash screens and mentions in the text notes hidden in the levels. The old Ubisoft’s soreness returns – exactly the same way it was building up the atmosphere in Division, without explaining anything. But gone are the days of lengthy backstories and storylines – Rainbow Six Extraction has no time for story campaigns. After a pretty, but fleeting roller in front of the player opens colorful menus with the proposal to buy a virtual stuff and connect with friends.
And this, in my opinion, is the main problem of novelty. From the very first minutes (well, after the splash screen, which I really wanted to rewind) the game inspires. After the depressing trailers I didn’t expect the gameplay to be so addictive and tactical. The end-of-the-world atmosphere? Check. Exciting and tactical gameplay with a ton of gadgets? Please. I immediately wanted to understand what was going on in the world and save the planet. But I never got to feel like a hero. The reason? This is a multiplayer shooter, not a story game. I got confused, although Rainbow Six Extraction never promised anything like that.
You may disagree with me, but in my opinion, without a storyline Rainbow Six Extraction loses too much, because it is characterized by the same thing as all other similar projects – monotony. And in this case, the monotony is even more obvious.
So Rainbow Six Extraction is about an America overrun by a parasite. Of course, in the spirit of Tom Clancy there is a special unit R.E.A.C.T.. (Rainbow Exogenous Analysis and Containment Team), set up to destroy the infestation. It consists of operators from all continents whose task is to find and study the alien threat. In this sense, there are several parallels with X-COM.
The game requires a group of three people to gather together and go to one of several maps teeming with aliens and all sorts of crap. Levels are divided into several sections, each more difficult than the previous. Whether or not it’s worth the risk depends on the team itself. At the same operators can become a victim of parasites and not return, thereby disappearing from the roster of available fighters. To get them back, you have to choose someone else and go to the same level again.
Rainbow Six Extraction succeeds in a lot of things. More specifically, it succeeds in the same way it succeeded in Siege. The combat system is still just as cool, and the tactical element remains its best element. Operators have a large set of gadgets, and coordinating your game with others to maximize the effectiveness of clearing the map without casualties is interesting, and I don’t even know what other game does this so well.
The risk of losing an operator adds a tension that is completely absent in other online shooters, but it also caused one of the main minuses: monotony. If you lose a fighter, or if he is disabled, you have to play as another one. This means that you have to pump him up again and again, repeating the usual levels. No one likes to go back to arenas they’ve already completed, and here it immediately reduces the degree of tension. That’s why I lament time and again that this is essentially a bloated Siege mode rather than something more. A great mode, yes, but a mode that will likely get bored in a dozen or two hours of play.
Rainbow Six Evacuation.
Of course, we can’t do without a separate swag store.
I think the developers guessed it all themselves, and as a result the price tag for the game dropped to $40, and it went straight to Game Pass. It’s a fair price – for forty bucks we get enough content. And if we don’t feel bad about what could have been, there’s not much to be sad about.
I should note that it is impossible to play offline, but there is a single-player playthrough. The latter pleases me, an introvert, as well as those who prefer to fight alone against an army of enemies. That said, there are no computer companions.