Rainbow Six Extraction Doesn't Give You The Tools To Break Its Maps

Back in November, Ubisoft Montreal boasted that Rainbow Six Extraction would feature maps that are roughly three times the size of those found in Rainbow Six Siege. Having now spent a good six hours playing the game during a preview event, I can confirm that yes, Extraction does feature some substantially larger maps in comparison to its PvP predecessor. But I was also surprised to see that the layouts of Extraction's maps are so horizontal in comparison to those found in Siege, where verticality plays a large role in both map design and navigation.

To be fair, I only managed to play on maps located in San Francisco and New York. In Extraction, several of Rainbow's operators are recruited to join a special team tasked with combating the parasitic alien Archaean threat that's spread throughout North America. That mission takes you to four different zones, each of which are divided into three maps, and each of those maps in turn are cut into three separate regions. So, for example, the San Francisco zone is split into the Tenderloin, Enterprise Space Foundation, and Apollo Casino & Resort maps.

Rainbow Six Extraction creative director Patrik Méthé told me that each zone of the game has "its own flavor," and pointed to Alaska as an example where the maps feature a little bit more verticality. "In Alaska, there's some old barns where you can have line-of-sight and have a good vantage point that you can exploit to either scan the area or to just down enemies," Méthé said.

And granted, the scenes of Alaska's three maps do seem to be a bit more open than the enclosed spaces found in New York and San Francisco, with opportunities to shoot down on enemies from a higher vantage point. But navigating those vertical spaces seems to be limited to staircases and ladders just like in New York and San Francisco. The grapple gear that Siege attack operators can utilize to scale walls and swing through windows isn't present in Extraction, and the game (at least at launch) doesn't feature any of the operators that can use their unique gadgets to navigate vertical spaces, such as Amaru.

The Archaeans don't seem to move along a vertical plane either. They can move up and down stairs, but not once in my six hours with the game did I ever have to worry about an Archaean crashing through the ceiling or climbing up from a lower floor and bursting through a window. Every enemy seemed to move along a horizontal plane.

It's an altogether very different sensation from that of playing Siege, where you need to consider that an attack can come from almost any direction at any time, and you can similarly move about the map in any number of ways to flank your opponent. Extraction instead creates it tension by limiting your own movement and putting you against overwhelming numbers--the threat isn't that you may not see your enemy's attack until it's too late, it's that you almost always can see it and you just might not be adequately equipped for it, forcing you to consider alternative strategies, like retreating and drawing enemies into a bottleneck.

I never managed to find a place on any of the maps I played, however, where I could easily mow down every enemy in a level. No single plan worked reliably--any strategy my allies and I came up with would prove effective for a while, but the Archaeans would wise up after a few seconds and we'd then have to adapt to them. So as much as I miss the need to consider that an attack can come from anywhere, I did appreciate that Extraction tries to make up for that by stacking the odds, numbers-wise, against you, maintaining Siege's encouragement to take a stealthy approach to combat.

"We tried to limit, as much as possible, the places where the player could exploit the AI," Méthé said. "For example, there are almost no dead ends. There's always at least a minimum of two different paths that you can take. So as a player, that means that you cannot just camp at a place and wait for the enemies, because at some point they will attack you from behind."

Méthé added that the maps in Extraction have three times the amount of destructible surfaces as those found in Siege, increasing the likelihood of being able to flank or get flanked from the sides. "One of the elements that will be critical to success is knowing the maps, knowing the opportunities that are available via destructible walls that you can exploit," Méthé said.

To help you accomplish this task, every operator comes equipped with a React Light, which illuminates the bioluminescence of enemies through walls. "It allows you to scan an area without the enemy being able to detect you," Méthé said. "And from there, you can coordinate your attack with your teammates and very efficiently clear a room in a few seconds, without going into a full-blown firefight and risk broadcasting your location."

The idea of that is intriguing, but it doesn't feel authentic to what I experienced during my preview. Though there were multiple opportunities to attack enemies through walls, there weren't many ways to breach through walls, engage a room of enemies from multiple sides, or clear rooms in one strategic push unless the squad had multiple operators on-hand with shotguns as their primary weapon or gadgets designed for destroying walls. Like Siege's grapple gear, breaching charges are absent from Extraction, so if you don't have someone like Sledge or Hibana on the squad, you're not breaking down many walls. Sure, you can shoot through them or give up a valuable item slot to carry explosive grenades that can blow up sections of wall, but there's no way to do a coordinated breach into a room and clear out every enemy unless teams pick certain operators.

Between the loss of vertical navigation and no way to regularly destroy the environment and create new pathways, Extraction feels like it loses a core part of Siege's DNA that helps that game stand out from other first-person shooters. To the developer's credit, Ubisoft Montreal isn't trying to design Extraction to replace Siege or be the next Siege--it instead wants the two games to exist side-by-side without cannibalizing each other's player bases. But since Extraction utilizes three-person squads instead of Siege's five-person teams, there are more opportunities for you to run with a squad in Extraction that doesn't have someone who can reliably breach through walls. And without that, Extraction feels like a lot of other squad-based PvE shooters where you take on hordes of enemies, albeit with a bit more stealth-focused gameplay.

I asked Méthé why Ubisoft Montreal went with three-person squads for Extraction as opposed to something larger like what's found in Siege, and the answer surprised me. I expected Ubisoft Montreal was trading on the variety that a five-person team could offer for the likely easier to balance three-person dynamic--fewer folks on a team, fewer variables to consider. But no, Ubisoft Montreal shrunk the team size to cut down on chaotic chat. Coordination was lost as soon as teams were expanded to four players.

"Right from the beginning, we started to work with a PvE experience in mind--that was the goal of Extraction," Méthé said. "And then we did some tests to make sure that since we wanted to make a tactical PvE game--which is not the same as most shooters out there that are more like a horde mode and you shoot down hundreds of enemies per level--that three operators was the sweet spot. More than that, it very quickly became less chaotic--in larger teams, one of your teammates is always getting detected, and it increases the chances that someone isn't following the plan. Just in terms of communication, you end up with people shouting on top of each other and it becomes a bit of a blur. So we felt that the three-player squad was the most efficient."

It's an understandable drawback to consider, but one that I feel has limited what Extraction could be right at the jump--a squad of three can't split up as often as a team of five if you want to ensure you're always within the vicinity of someone who can break through walls. Siege was built around the idea of approaching a single problem through a multitude of ways, a stratagem that doesn't seem to fully translate to Extraction's core gameplay loop. In Siege, even if your attack operator didn't possess a unique gadget geared towards breaching, you could equip breaching charges and still open new pathways of attack and navigation. Extraction doesn't have that, and it's so limiting--I noticed that I wasn't having as much fun when I wasn't playing as someone like Hibana and able to utilize the destructible environment to my advantage.

That's my biggest worry for Extraction as we approach its launch. The game has some cool-looking maps that dwarf the size of those found in Siege, but without an easy means of regularly bending that environment to your will in order to create new pathways and sightlines, it loses out on what I find most fulfilling about Siege's gameplay. Maybe in the end that will be a good thing that keeps Extraction from eating Siege's breakfast, but it doesn't feel good to have left the Extraction play sessions wanting to play more Siege instead. And it's not like Extraction wasn't fun--I had a good time playing--but the player's ability to regularly shape the environment in Extraction seems to pale in comparison to Siege.

Rainbow Six Extraction will launch for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, PC, Stadia, and Luna. The Xbox One and PS4 versions of Extraction will upgrade to the Xbox Series X|S and PS5 versions of the game, respectively, for free. If you have friends that you want to play Extraction with, it might be wise to only buy one copy at first--every copy of Extraction comes with two buddy passes that you can give to whomever you want, with each pass offering a free 14-day trial of the game.