Rainbow Six Extraction forgets to have fun with its setting

polygon.com:

Rainbow Six: Extraction is very, very serious. The world is at risk of being consumed by an alien parasite, and the Rainbow Six organization is there to fight back the invading Archaeans and save humanity. Ubisoft wants you to know that the stakes are very high, and the mission is incredibly important. There’s just one problem: It’s tough to have fun when Extraction itself refuses to have any.

I sat down to play a preview copy of Extraction with fellow Polygon gamer Austen Goslin, and the two of us queued up on PC with another early access player as our third teammate. We could each pick from a handful of agents. Some of the gang from Rainbow Six Siege is there, with characters like Mira and Ash serving as support NPCs back at base; many of Siege’s other agents are playable out in the field. A guy like Sledge is great for breaking down walls with his big ol’ sledgehammer, whereas Doc can heal his allies and serve as the team medic.

Once my teammates and I selected our agents and loadouts, Extraction dropped us into the field. We worked our way through hordes of Archaean to complete special objectives. It’s the kind of game that’s great for playing with pals — it’s meant to be endlessly replayable, offering tons of progression. When I play through an incursion, I can complete three random objectives from a pool of 12. On top of that, I have my own personal goals to track, like sniping a specific amount of Nests or killing particular enemies. The objectives and enemies are randomly spawned in. There’s enough challenge that you’re engaged while still enjoying adequate downtime to shoot the shit with your friends. The issue is that Extraction doesn’t do enough to sell itself over the dozens of other games in this niche.

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