Balmy summer afternoon, Liberty Island, New York. Tourists take it easy at the foot of the Freedom enlightening the world. A grandfather weighs the pros and cons: whether or not to buy one of these souvenir snow globes? Suddenly, everything changes: huge strange black shapes escape violently from the ground. Quickly, the Statue of Liberty is decapitated. As the huge head sags, we’re left to imagine him crushing the poor old man at his feet.
” Frankly ! we find ourselves saying aloud when we launch for the first time Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Extraction, a new military-futuristic collaborative experience from Ubisoft Montreal. So there are no more limits?
We’ve often wondered how far the studio is willing to go with its Tom Clancy franchise. From a slow and tactical video game and military anticipation novels as only the American author has the secret, Rainbow Six radically deviated from its original material. With Extraction, Ubisoft dances on Clancy’s grave. The result is not necessarily bad. But perhaps he would benefit from assuming himself by taking himself a little less seriously.
In this new first-person shooter, the counter-terrorist soldiers of the competitive game tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege are called upon to form a new unit, REACT, dedicated to the containment and study of extraterrestrials that have appeared across the United States.
Alone or with two teammates, we “infiltrate” into the areas where these humanoid extraterrestrials are confined. Each area is divided into three subsections, each with its main objective, such as sabotaging a nest, capturing an alien, or, quite simply, killing one in cold blood. At any time, it is possible to take to their heels, to “extract”, hence the name ofExtraction.
By moving from one subsection to another, the level of difficulty increases, but the rewards also become more enticing. Because under the shell of this shooting game hides an RPG: each successful outing brings experience which allows you to improve your character. Pushing your luck too far can however be expensive: you will have to mount a new expedition to save our “operator” left behind and recover our points associated with it.
A tone problem
The comparison with other collaborative experiences such as Back 4 Blood or even Tom Clancy’s: The Division would be too easy. Rather, the choice between pursuing or ending its mission results in a tension similar to that found in Hunt: Showdown, Escape from Tarkov Where GTFO.
Tension which unfortunately never reaches its climax. The absence of opposing players in the flesh has a lot to do with it; Extraction can only rely on more or tougher enemies to modulate its difficulty. Artificial intelligence has its limits.
But it is above all the solemn tone adopted by Extraction that we have never been able to take as seriously as he does himself. The idea behind the REACT unit, to confine extraterrestrials to study them and learn how to make new explosive contraptions, is implausible. A comment on how a successful mission will help “obtain private funding” leaves us speechless. And our teammate who wears a cat’s face, even more.
(Yes, you can already get “cosmetics” there, similar to those of Seat, each crazier than the next. On the other hand, these stand out much more in Extraction.)
Extraction above all gives the opportunity to lovers of Rainbow Six the opportunity to reconnect with their favorite characters. We appreciated the interactions between Ash, Thermite and Mira, who occupy leading roles. In the field, the gadgets of Ela, Finka or even Sledge, first conceived in the paradigm of Seat, work wonderfully in the evolving context ofExtraction.
And the game shines in its infiltration phases. We are of the opinion that a game of the genre must be judged by the yardstick of the moment when one is detected by the enemy, of this moment between the calm full of tension and the total chaos; and we can only say good things about it here.
Already included in Microsoft’s Game Pass subscription service and including the purchase of a 14-day “pass” for two other players, you will find in Extraction enough to occupy our confined evenings for a while.
On the other hand, it will be difficult not to think of the other options available to us.