(PS4, PS5, Xb1, Xbox Series S|X, PC,
Stadia) “Never change a winning team” thinks Ubisoft and gives his
Rainbow Six Siege” a spin-off with a slightly different twist.
slightly different twist: this time, teams of three don’t compete against each other,
but have to survive crisp multi-level missions against gloomy clump aliens.
aliens.

The story isn’t very innovative from the beginning.
innovative, and it doesn’t get better as it goes on. On Liberty Island (and
a handful of other locations) an alien parasite has appeared,
which threatens to destroy all life. Symbolically it also disassembles the
Statue of Liberty. The specialists from the game “Rainbow Six Siege” move in,
to get to the bottom of the malicious slime mutant and its monstrous
and his monstrous outgrowths.

Means concretely for us players: First you choose one
one of 18 figures for the mission – from the battleani to the scout and the
hammer wielder – and equip them in the best possible way. Then you set off with up to
two other players into the danger zone and perform a variety of tasks.
For example, you collect samples, protect sets of bombs or hunt down a certain enemy, optionally
a certain enemy, either silently sneaking or with smoking guns.
smoking guns. The variety of enemies is solid, and there are also some creative opponents
creative opponents beyond known archetypes (spitters, jumpers, etc.) such as the morphing
the morphing tormentor, for example.

Good communication and team play are, as in “Siege”, also
Extraction” are the keys to success, because the tasks for our trio are
are not child’s play. Resources are scarce, you don’t heal automatically,
but only with medikits, and there are one or two other nasty surprises waiting for
surprise.

The more you have done, the harder the next challenge will be.
Challenge or the more biting the aliens are. So you have to weigh up every time:
Go on another, even harder mission and maybe die, i.e. lose everything, or
lose everything, or take the precaution of flying home and getting less loot and
loot and experience points, but take them safely with you. If a single
team member is knocked out and thus lost, he can be rescued in a separate mission – otherwise he
otherwise the character will lose experience. This hurts, because with
Experience, the characters are leveled up individually, quite linearly. The imminent
danger provides an extra adrenaline rush while playing.

In principle, there is potential in the basic gameplay of “Extraction”. The action from “Rainbow Six Siege” – i.e. weapons, controls, look & feel – has been translated well into the new, gloomy setting. In addition, the battles and sneak attacks are great fun, especially in a team with friends. The problem of “Extraction”, however, is the repetitive gameplay loop, which loses its appeal too quickly. You’ve quickly seen everything worth seeing. Furthermore, the R6 spin-off offers neither great story developments nor meaningful rewards that motivate in the long run. We can only hope that Ubisoft will improve this soon.