Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Extraction, originally known under its working title Quarantine, is a cooperative First-Person Shooter video game in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six franchise, developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft.
It is a spin-off of Rainbow Six Siege, set in the Alternate Timeline of Operation Outbreak where the Chimeran alien threat resurfaced worldwide years after the original event in Truth or Consequences, more evolved than ever to endanger humanity once again. Facing this threat is the Rainbow Exogenous Analysis & Containment Team, or simply REACT, is a division of Team Rainbow that was established to combat the resurgent Chimerans, now referred to as Archæans.
Extraction sees the return of numerous gameplay elements from Siege, namely the destructible environments, as well as the Operators and their gadgets, but adapted them to facilitate a three-player cooperative model. Missions are comprised of three smaller sub-zones, each with their own self-contained objectives that the players can complete for additional experience, though it's not an absolute requirement to finish all of them in one sitting. Indeed, Extraction promotes a level of risk vs. reward calculation, where players will earn more experience for pushing further into an Incursion, but are also encouraged to evacuate the level (i.e. extract) if their resources have dwindled past the point where it would be safe to carry on.
Like Siege, Extraction also features time-limited events, known as Crisis Events, each with their own set of rules. Ranked play returns in the form of the Maelstrom Protocol.
Extraction provides examples of these tropes:
- Absurdly Ineffective Barricade: They can once again be placed over windows, as well as doorways that have been broken through to impede the incoming Archæans, who will still knock them down rather easily all things considered.
- Alien Invasion: The Chimeran parasite no longer propagates by infecting humans as it did in Outbreak, having evolved enough during the interim between said event and this game to be able to produce its own pure-strain units, called Archæans. They still serve largely the same functions they used to during Outbreak, with several new types being introduced this time around such as Spikers and Tormentors. The side-effect of this is that Archæans now kill humans on sight, as they no longer provide hosts for the vector to infest.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- Friendly-fire has been completely removed, even on the harder difficulties, unless playing on the unlockable Veteran challenge mode. This lets operators with kits that potentially go both ways such as Fuze or Smoke to contribute to the team effort without endangering the lives of themselves or their teammates. Shooting directly at an ally will still prompt a reaction, however.
- It is not at all required to complete all objectives in an Incursion, since each sub-zone is self-contained and has no knock-on effect on the others regardless of if it was successfully cleared or not. If a mission is about to, or has already gone south, the group can also cut their losses and extract right away for a lower point reward. It's also entirely possible to fail every single objective in a run, and the mission would still be considered a success if all players manage to successfully extract.
- If all of your roster becomes MIA, assuming you can even reach that point in the first place, the game will make the first three missing operators available again at full health, so you can work on getting them all back without rendering the game Unintentionally Unwinnable. There's also nothing stopping you from booting into a map with an MIA operator on the lowest possible difficulty to save them without being hassled by Mutations and the tougher enemy types on the harder settings.
- Speaking of MIA operators. Even if you bungle a Rescue objective, the MIA operator will still be considered "saved", albeit at the forfeiture of all REACT progression they've banked on them before initially going missing.
- If your team is on your final objective, you don't actually need to place the VIP or a teammate covered in stasis foam in the extraction pod when attempting to get them out of the level. As long as the KO teammate or VIP is on the extraction mat when the chopper is called, they will be counted as having been safely rescued.
- The Nutrient Node in a Shutdown objective will be revealed as soon as a player has picked up a foam canister, making it less stressful for the team as a whole to locate it before they start foaming it up.
- The REACT UV light is always equipped on all of your weapons regardless of loadout and/or development progression, and cannot be removed, which will highlight Archæans through thin, breakable walls to let the team know where they are and how to coordinate around them as well as highlighting weaknesses in red when viewed through walls.
- Armor-Piercing Attack: Certain operator equipment can ignore Archæans carapace and deal unmitigated damage to them. It's one of the reasons why Hibana is considered to be an inverse Skill Gate Character, as her X-KAIROS rounds are less useful on lower difficulties where Archæans don't typically have armor due to lack of Mutations, or the hardier types like Smashers and Proteans being rare to non-existent.
- Auto-Revive:
- The Revive Kit equipment allows you to do this while DBNO. The game's "one-DBNO-per-level" rule can be bypassed by having a Revive Kit ready in your inventory, with the added caveat of your bleedout timer being made progressively and significantly shorter the more times you've used it.
- Certain operators can unlock the Resilient Revival perk, which allows them to pick themselves back up from DBNO by killing enough Archæans while downed to refill the bleedout meter.
- Additionally, Finka and Doc's abilities still can revive downed players remotely as they did in Siege.
- Alternate Timeline: Extraction follows up on the world state set up by Operation Outbreak instead of sticking to the plotline of Siege. In this version of the universe, all of the operators remained with Rainbow instead of defecting to NIGHTHAVEN as was the case with Smoke, Ela, Finka, Pulse, and IQ after the 2022 SIX Invitational.
- All Your Powers Combined: At least weapon-wise. Several operators can now use the guns of their companions from Siege, such as Vigil inheriting Dokkaebi's M14 EBR, or Ela gaining access to Zofia's LMG-E and M72 (and conversely, Zofia can use Ela's Scorpion EVO 3 and FO-12 when she was released post-launch). Standout cases are Rook, who can use Lion's V308, and Fuze, who also receives Finka's Spear .308 as an unlockable weapon.
- The Blank: A standard feature of most Archæan strains, although their facial structures have deep holes where a human's eye sockets would be despite their lack of physical eyes. The REACT science team are still at a loss as to how they're able to sense prey without external sensory organs like eyes and ears, though several theories were put forth in the studies.
- Boring, but Practical: The default secondary REACT equipment RV drone is a rather reliable gadget. It can scan enemies and pickups so they can be seen through walls, moves quickly, is basically invisible since you can even jump it through a window and no enemy will bat an eye at it, and so long as the battery doesn't die before you can recall it you can throw back out at full charge right away with only a 30 second wait otherwise. The ability to quickly, safely, and reliably examine chunks of the map in this game is quite the blessing. The upgraded XR Recon drone unlockable at Development Milestone 16 is an even better version, as it also scans everything around it automatically at a short interval and has a longer battery life, albeit at the cost of a slightly slower travel speed.
- Cool Boat: REACT forces are based out of the Pioneer, a refitted tanker ship that's the first of its kind in the world, with more being planned for future construction. It even has a built-in daycare where Pulse and Hibana's daughter Maho is watched over while her parents are out on a mission.
- Demoted to Extra: Several operators have been reduced to this capacity, such as Ash and Thermite, who only serve as your Mission Control despite the former being both this and a field operative during Outbreak. Mira, Iana, and Dokkaebi have likewise been relegated to R&D instead of joining their colleagues on Incursions.
- Elite Mooks: Elite Archæans. These are the boss-level versions of the standard enemies you usually face, except for Bloaters and Breachers who don't have Elite variants, and Proteans who are boss-type, with massively increased health and damage (e.g. an Elite Grunt can down an operator at max armor value in two-three swipes at best). They usually serve as the final target of Hunt mode, or the Capture target for the objective of the same name, though at higher difficulties they will mingle with their more common brethren. These Elites are denoted by glowing blue veins across their bodies, and scanning them through walls with the REACT ultraviolet light will show no weakness. Elite versions of the most basic mooks can take 2 mags or more of automatic weapons fire to bring down, compared to just a handful of shots for the standard versions.
- Excuse Plot: While Extraction has a premise, it has no overarching plotline nor a narrative to carry you through the "story", or what little there is of one. Unlike Outbreak, which ran on an objective-driven narrative across its three maps, Extraction can be summed up simply as "go here, kill Archæans, and bring some stuff back to the ship", and the mission objectives have no knock-on effect on the game's storytelling as a whole. It has little in the way of a "plot" beyond a few bits of animated cutscenes here and there, and a sizable portion of the characters' backstory and in-game lore are provided in the form of readable studies instead.
- Final Boss: Proteans usually fill this role, either as the final target of a Hunt objective, or in a more traditional way as the final boss fight of a Gateway mission. When fought during Gateway, Proteans will display a boss-like health bar at the top of the screen and can use a wider variety of moves, and will occasionally vanish from the arena and release lesser Archæans to whittle you down in their stead.
- Fragile Speedster: Downplayed as the game progresses. Light and Medium-Armor operators like Alibi or Ela still start with their innately lower defenses, but later Advancement tiers can alleviate this by boosting them up to 3 or 4-Armor without reducing their movement speed.
- Glass Cannon: Operators are well-armed and can take out Archæans by the dozens, but just like in Siege they can't take much damage themselves, with even a high-armor operator with max health and max temporary health going down in just a handful of hits on Moderate difficulty.
- Hive Mind: All Archæans are formed of the Sprawl at their molecular levels, making each of them an "organ" of one large individual being that share the same localized consciousness. An Archæan howling to rally its brethren is theorized by REACT scientist to be similar to the brain's neurons firing and alerting each other to a foreign stimuli (a.k.a. you).
- Mighty Glacier: Downplayed on the "glacier" aspect. 3-Armor operators still retain their snail's pace from Siege from the get-go, especially in the case of Tachanka, where a lowly Grunt can out-sprint him even when he's not slowed down by the Sprawl. However, they will eventually be able to upgrade to a brisk jog after leveling up enough times, up to the equivalent of 3-Speed.
- Meat Moss: The Chimeran Sprawl, which propagates from Nests or other high-profile structures, and slain Archæans will also dissolve into a small pool of the substance on death, assuming their bodies were not disintegrated by an explosion or headshot. Sprawl impedes the movement of operators treading on it, and with a specific Mutation active it can even damage them as a Bloater gas cloud would. It serves a similar function to the Creep from StarCraft, where it acts as a neural network for every Archæan structure on the map and a convenient way to spawn units on demand to respond to threats. Sprawl can be removed by shooting, having explosives detonating over it, or bashing it, and destroying Archæan structures like Nests or Arch Spines will cause large patches of it to recede, but physically breaking it in any way will cause a noise that alerts nearby Archæans. Alternatively, the unlockable REACT laser can be used to silently dissolve small areas of Sprawl.
- Mirror Match: As they did in Operation Containment, the Proteans are still Chimeran copies of certain operators in Extraction, which you can face down by playing as the "original". The Containment Proteans don't appear in-game (yet), however, with the present types being copies of Alibi, Sledge, and Smoke.
- Mook Maker: Chimeran Nests serve as the spawning point for numerous Archæans, so taking them out should be one of the first priorities. Apexes can bypass the need for them by summoning Archæans directly from the Sprawl instead.
- Mission Control: Ash serves as your Voice with an Internet Connection now, with Thermite being her Number Two. Mira returns as the head of R&D and will also occasionally advise you on how to handle specific objectives.
- Never Say "Die": Your operators cannot die in this game no matter what. In the event that they lose all of their hitpoints, they will collapse and be covered in stasis foam. If this happens while playing solo, or if your teams failed to bring you with them to the extraction zone, your operator will be regarded as Missing in Action, and an MIA Rescue objective will be made available the next time you go on an Incursion in the same map that you previously lost them in.
- Outside-Context Problem: The Chimeras went from being a space virus in Outbreak to a space parasite that's billions of years old in this game (analyses of their biological components give them a date of origin of about 16 billion years ago, long predating the known universe).
- Permanently Missable Content: Event-related studies and cosmetics will be gone for good if you didn't manage to nab them during the window that they were available, but if a Crisis Event offers a new piece of equipment and the event was missed, it will be made purchasable later in the Store for a small amount of REACT Credits. New operators who were introduced with Crisis Events (e.g. Zofia) will become unlocked automatically upon the update installing and cannot be missed.
- Patient Zero: Boyd Brooks, the man who first encountered the Chimeran virus and unintentionally released it all across Truth or Consequences years ago. You can come across what little is left of his corpse upon revisiting the town in Extraction, when playing in the Biohazard Labs segment of the Sierra County Hospital map.
- Serial Escalation: Certain pieces of operator gadgets have received a version upgrade specifically made to combat Archæans, such as Smoke's Z9 grenades, IQ's RedEye becomes a Mk. IV, and Vigil uses the ERC-8. The stand-out example among these gadgets is Pulse's HB-7 sensor versus the HB-5 he had in Siege, meaning that he skipped the generation 6 model entirely.
- Stealth-Based Mission: Stealth is an important mechanic in this game, even if it's not enforced. To facilitate this, most of the available firearms will come pre-fitted with suppressors when unlocked.
- Due to the strict limitation on your (permanent) health and resources, engaging in a lot of combat is a bad idea especially on harder difficulties, where the likes of Smashers and Apexes are common, and being spotted by one mook can mean an entire half of the map bearing down on you at once, with more being spawned from Nests to supplement their numbers.
- It is also a vital part of certain objectives.
- In the VIP rescue objective, alerted Archæans will immediately try to kill the Asset when given the chance, therefore it would behoove you to try and reach your target without rousing too much attention.
- The Nest Tracking mission requires said Nests to be unalerted in order for you to tag them, so getting detected enough times will cause them to wake up and the objective to fail.
- The Biopsy objective also relies a bit on stealth, due to the necessity of performing a Takedown on your target, but it's not as important to remain undetected if you happen to have stun or paralysis grenades on you, since they also open the Elite up for a melee attack.
- The Turret Master: Tachanka and Jäger now fill this role, with the former bringing back his LMG stand that he can share with his allies, and the former's ADS platforms have been refitted to fire micro explosives at nearby Archæans and their projectiles, due to the lack of enemy-thrown explosives in this game. The first Crisis Event, Spillover, also introduced deployable sentry guns, allowing all operators to play this trope straight in some capacity.
- True Sight: IQ's RedEye Mk. IV can sense REACT equipment boxes through walls, and at a higher Advancement tier, cloaked Archæans.
- There Was a Door: Archæans have the curious tendency of breaking through soft walls to reach you instead of going through the infinitely more convenient open door right next to them. It can sometimes give you enough warning or time to avoid something worse meaning it's overall a bonus to the operator.
- Video Game Caring Potential: The No One Left Behind mini-objective is an example of this. It's activated upon a teammate being KO'd and tasks you with carrying them to the extraction pod so they can be rescued by REACT and not be rendered MIA. It provides no XP bonus beyond saving your teammates of the potential headache of having to rescue their lost operator later on.
- Weaksauce Weakness: All Archæans with the exception of Proteans are vulnerable to being stunned or paralyzed by operator equipment, which opens them up for a quick Takedown kill. Apexes cannot be killed via Takedown, however they will still be incapacitated for a few seconds if a stun grenade exploded in their face.
- Wound That Will Not Heal: Zig-zagged with your operators' health. Assuming they're at top condition, all operators will begin an Incursion with 100 permanent HP, and up to 50 temporary health when played on the two easier settings.
- On the one hand, this permanent HP, as indicated by a solid white block, will not regenerate when healed, as the medkits found throughout the sub-zones can only replenish lost temporary health, as would operator abilities that grant hitpoints, such as Doc's Stim Pistol or Finka's Adrenal Surge. This, along with the limited supply of medkits, was apparently done to enforce a sense of attrition, where players would be encouraged to extract and not carry on with the mission when their health has dipped low enough to put them at risk of being KO'd and potentially going MIA.
- On the other, a wounded operator will slowly regenerate their permanent HP while you're going on Incursions with other characters, so while they can recover from those wounds, healing while on the field is still mostly a no-go and a delaying measure at best.
- A side note is healing is related to how much progress you make and objectives are completed in a mission. If you spend a bunch of missions completing little the hp of idle operators will take a long time to heal.
