In Rainbow Six Extraction, the operators from Rainbow Six Siege explore a mysterious alien species called Chimera that has invaded the USA. Right from the start, Ubisoft clearly communicated that the game is a PVE co-op title. Ideally, you’ll be in a group of three for the missions.

But what if you don’t have enough friends at hand and don’t want to play with randoms via matchmaking? Then Extraction fortunately also works alone. You can also play the stakes with the exciting risk-reward principle solo, for which there is even a separate cutscene in the game during the first corresponding game. However, there are a few things you should definitely know for solo missions.

1. There are no AI bots!
   Playing alone in Extraction means actually being alone. That means you can’t replace missing human players with computer controlled bots. So you are completely on your own and can’t hope for help from anyone else. This makes the atmosphere within the areas even more exciting and interesting, and sometimes Extraction even feels like a horror game.
2. Don’t be afraid of the difficulty level!
   Due to the fact that the game scales the mission objectives and the number of enemies within the areas depending on the number of players, you will have to deal with significantly fewer Archaen critters if you play alone. Even mission objectives that normally require more than one person – for example, transporting bombs – are scaled so that you only have to run once and don’t have to do the same thing three times. We found the first two difficulty levels easy to manage on our own if we were careful, but the third level, “Heftig”, became tricky.
3. Pack the resurrection!
   Lack of co-op mates in Extraction also means that no one can help you if you are in a down-state or unconscious. So this situation solo automatically means the loss of the respective operator. Therefore, be sure to pack resurrection when playing solo. This REACT technology can be unlocked comparatively early and gives you a second chance, which can often be crucial in Extraction.
4. Missing operators are particularly easy to rescue alone
   This is our experience from the first hours of playing Extraction. If you lose an operator in a mission, the effort to get him back is lowest in a solo mission, especially on the lowest difficulty level. This is because here the “operator rescue” mission appears almost exclusively in the first section of a mission, and the rescue mission itself is also much easier to complete thanks to the significantly lower number of connections to the archaic tree. Note, however, that you’ll have to switch back and forth between pulling out the operator and shooting the glowing dots, so you’ll be responsible for both.
5. No solo bonuses, but still a good leveling option
   If you go alone into the infested mission areas, you can’t count on special XP rewards in Extraction, because these are distributed regardless of the number of players. However, solo games are a good way to level up the operators or the overall rank. This is mainly due to the fact that you can concentrate on the studies – i.e. the side tasks – much more and you don’t have to worry about your teammates snatching them away from under your nose.

Together you are less alone

In general, the solo mode works quite smoothly and even has minor advantages over the co-op missions in a few places. In our experience, Extraction is even more fun with one or two players – no wonder, since it is designed for this number of players.

By the way, you can find other players in Extraction not only on your own system, but also on all other systems – thanks to crossplay: