Rainbow Six Extraction is a tactical co-op shooter, a spin-off of the incredibly popular Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege. The game will be a standalone Tom Clancy video title rather than a DLC of Rainbow Six Siege. While fans of the franchise were excited at the prospect of an updated version of their favorite shooter, the response to trailers and gameplay has been largely negative.
First revealed at E3 2019 as Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Quarantine with a release date of 2020, Rainbow Six Extraction was delayed twice, once to give the development team more time to work on the project, then again due to the COVID pandemic, like many other major video games delayed to 2022. Now set to be released on January 20, Rainbow Six Extraction is a co-op multiplayer shooter in which players fight a mutating parasitic alien race known as the Archaeans. While some fans hoped for a zombie-killing experience like Left 4 Dead, the disappointment seemed universal, with many feeling that there has been little evolution from Rainbow Six Siege’s 2015 graphics and gameplay.
The sense of disappointment seems to boil down to a few reasons. Firstly, fans who tried to participate in Rainbow Six Extraction's alpha testing found the game unplayable, due to a watermark plastered across the screen, intended to prevent alpha testers from streaming the game, which would break an NDA, in an attempt to prevent further leaks of Rainbow Six Extraction gameplay footage. While this is temporary, fans were frustrated at not being able to truly experience the game. Secondly, players who decided to play on despite the watermark encountered texture and screen-tearing, frequent disconnects, extended load times, and lag. Although these issues are likely due to the game’s alpha test status, the response from players was bad enough that Ubisoft set its Discord server to read-only due to an influx of complaints.
Fans Left Disappointed By Rainbow Six Extraction's Gameplay & Graphics
Players who persisted despite the intrusive watermark were equally unimpressed with the game. Some criticized Rainbow Six Extraction's similarity to Outbreak, a limited-time zombie event in Rainbow Six Siege. While fans enjoyed the event, creating an entire spinoff game based on the same story and characters feels derivative, and many fans were disappointed at the lack of an original concept. Others likened Rainbow Six Extraction to Terrorist Hunt, a now-retired Rainbow Six Siege game mode intended for training purposes.
On top of this, Rainbow Six Extraction's multiplayer gameplay looks very similar to Outbreak, with no visible improvement to the graphics. The reason for this is Rainbow Six Extraction repurposes Rainbow Six Siege's engine Ubisoft Anvil, rather than utilizing a newer engine. One user on Reddit offered a counter-argument against the harsh criticism the new game has faced, saying that no graphical upgrade from Rainbow Six Siege isn't necessarily a bad thing, as Rainbow Six Siege is "already a really nice looking game."
Ubisoft has shown its willingness to listen to feedback from fans, as Rainbow Six Extraction was initially advertised with a price of $60 which was reduced to $40, after backlash that the price was too high. The criticisms of Rainbow Six Extraction demonstrate that Ubisoft doesn't know what fans want from a new Rainbow Six or Tom Clancy's game, with many players stating that they'd rather stick with Rainbow Six Siege. As both games use the same Ubisoft Anvil engine, despite being released seven years apart, Extraction's graphics appear dated when compared with other 2022 releases that were created for next-gen consoles and utilize newer graphics engines, like Epic Games' Unreal Engine 5.
Hopefully, the final version of Rainbow Six Extraction will be a marked improvement from the alpha test version. Ubisoft may need to make amends with fans and provide incentives to get players to give the game another go, especially given its higher price point. Despite being delayed for two years from its original release date, Rainbow Six Extraction appears to leave much to be desired, unfortunately for fans of the Rainbow Six franchise.
Source: Ddddddooooooohgod/Reddit