We played a preview, a nice surprise! @VGR

Rainbow Six Siege has undoubtedly become one of the major first-person shooters of the last few years and it is still a hit with gamers and on the esports scene. However, this is not a sequel, but a PVE-oriented spin-off that Ubisoft recently pulled out of its boxes: Rainbow Six Extraction, a horrific and cooperative shooter that echoes two temporary events that R6 Siege has already received. . So it was without waiting for anything and with the feeling of coming face to face with a simple XXL game mode sold at full blast that I took my keyboard and my mouse. Well, you have to believe that I was wrong all along.

Surprise, it’s not just a lambda FPS!

“The plot”, if I may say so, of this R6 Extraction fits on a postage stamp. Aliens suddenly invade the world and it’s up to Team Rainbow to clean up, period. Ubisoft doesn’t look any further, and that’s not a bad thing, but still punctuates its game with some well-felt introductory cutscenes, and after a brief trip to training camp, you’re thrown into the lion’s den. .

It is at the controls ofa little less than twenty operators, all from Rainbow Six Siege, who will have to eradicate the alien threat up to three players in cooperation. We thus find Doc, Sledge, Hibana, Rook or even Ela (I obviously will not list them all) as well as their special abilities simply adjusted (in terms of statistics in particular) to stick to the new enemies. Aficionados will therefore be in familiar territory and will find all the starting gear of their favorite agents, but will also be able to count on a whole bunch of new gadgets, such as armor to increase their defense, special grenades or even a kit to revive oneself. – even (once only).

In total, there are already more than twenty objects to specialize, a few additional weapons for each of the operators and a host of gadgets to add to them as in R6 Siege. A very generous offer, between the many operators planned for the release, others who will certainly come later, and a complete arsenal which will allow to fine-tune its teams as well as possible. Rainbow Six Extraction doesn’t take half measures. However, before you can access all these tools, you will need to accumulate technological points that can be exchanged by completing objectives during your missions. And it’s much easier said than done, since, surprise, Rainbow Six Extraction isn’t just a co-op shooter, it’s also a real roguelite.

A title that promises to be generous at all levels

Yes, you read that right: Rainbow Six Extraction looks to roguelite and offers a demanding experience where cooperation, tactics and infiltration are essential for success. If we will tend to want to get into the bacon of the bugs that block our way as in a Back 4 Blood, we get disillusioned very quickly, I had the cruel experience and my colleagues too.

It is imperative to be well prepared before leaving on a mission, to choose the composition of your team and the barda of everyone to be on top and fulfill the objectives that are asked of us.. These are fortunately given before we choose all our gear, which really allows you to refine your strategy before getting to the heart of the matter. Here too Ubisoft has seen the big picture to deliver high replayability to its title. At first, it is the large amount of lenses that is nice to see. There are a little less than fifteen different, ranging from the simple recovery of VIPs, to the destruction of nests, the elimination of given creatures through more original and difficult missions, such as the capture of living monsters or the biopsy which forces us to eliminate targets in the body -to-body.

Same story with regard to the proposed environments, San Francisco, New York, Alaska and a last still kept secret, which offer a lot of diversity. However, we can blame the first two to look a bit alike, urban areas require, but nothing too bad. However, for the moment, Alaska has the best maps. Between his village with the false air of Resident Evil Village and its underground lab, the atmospheres are drastically different and above all effective. The artistic direction is not left out and also offers very nice things. For the technique however, I will wait for the final exit to look into the subject.

Always with the aim of offering a unique experience from one run to another, each of these destinations offers 3 maps, themselves divided into several interconnected sectors in which you will have to fulfill a different objective each time. And if the level design, high level by the way, does not change one iota between each game. The spawn and extraction points, the objectives, as well as the order of the sectors and the arrangement of enemies, traps and other threats, are completely random..

Results, from one mission to another, you never know where you are going and the surprise is constant. In four hours of play, even replaying the same objectives on the same maps, my companions and I never had the same experience. Therefore, it is not difficult to say that the replayability promises to be very good.

A good big challenge

And it is not worse since we take expensive, very expensive. You will have to start over several times before earning your rewards and unlocking the agents and other items in the arsenal. The challenge is there, regardless of the level of difficulty chosen. Currently there are four and the last two will not be playable until you know the maps and have a minimum of equipment. We, for our session, we mainly played at the very first difficulty level after getting washed on the second. The thing is,Ubisoft clearly does not stroke the player in the direction of the hair and, although the game is perfectly accessible, it does not hesitate to be particularly perverse..

As I said above, cooperation and coordination are essential for a simple reason: danger is everywhere and the damage we take is high. It must also be said that the alien militia has resources. The enemies are often in number in the maps and their troops are very diverse. I have seen no less than a dozen different critters, ranging from the basic offspring that attacks us with its claws, to the hound that smashes through walls to exploding creatures. Others can even release gas or put themselves invisible (by making the other monsters at their side benefit from it).

Fortunately, like in GTFO, most of the time the monsters are not on alert and can be eliminated silently. We therefore find ourselves walking crouching, the viewfinder which scans in all corners in search of enemies and even through the destructible walls thanks to a special flashlight. It is ultimately very addicting, the atmosphere is efficient and even has its eye on survival horror, especially since the environment is also a cut throat..

Not content with being in number, the aliens also rot the entire environment (walls, ceilings, floors, objects, etc.) with living miasma which will spread out dynamically in the event of an alert. This viscous material can be cleaned quickly with a gun, but will return if you do not destroy the source, kinds of large pustules can also alert, or even spawn new creatures. Note also the presence of disgusting Slimes roaming floors, walls and ceilings leaving trails of miasma in their wake if they do not attack you directly. Or even spores stashed everywhere, sometimes even under tables or in shelves, which will stick to you to nibble your health. The only way to get rid of them will be for one of your colleagues to come and remove them by hand, otherwise they will explode and release a toxic mist in a large area.

An almost final death and an endgame to drive the point home

You would have understood it, Extraction leaves no respite for players and it will clearly be necessary to keep an eye out, not to mention that the missions are real obstacle courses. However, it will be possible to extract between each secure sector to earn part of the rewards. This is not an option to be taken lightly, because, I haven’t told you yet, but taking damage, or worse, dying, in Rainbow Six Extraction is not nothing: it is also reflected after the current mission and affects your following parts.

After an operation, the damage received by your agent is kept, and then it will take some rest to regain a full health bar, which means you will have to play with other characters to let your wounded breathe a bit. And in the event that you die while on a mission, your agent is simply lost and simply becomes unplayable until saved.

An almost final death that it will nevertheless be possible to counter in two different ways. The first is simply to ask your allies to repatriate the body before leaving the area. It will then be necessary for your comrades to transport your agent out of the race to a caisson on the extraction zone, then succeed in exfiltrating them too.

The second option will be to recover your agent yourself by relaunching a mission in the area where you lost him. From then on, a special objective will appear and you will have to take the carcass of your operator out of a cocoon, while defending the area, to finally exfiltrate it, and you too, that goes without saying.

A complicated affair, but one which adds a real feeling of insecurity. It’s engaging, immersive, and you clearly don’t want to miss your mission, especially if you’re playing with one of your favorite and well-equipped agents. We will therefore have to be very careful once again, especially since it does not only affect the basic mode of the game, but also that of its endgame: the Maelstrom Protocol.

It is the ultimate goal of this Rainbow Six Extraction: climb the Maelstrom Protocol leaderboard to unlock rewards. A very challenging mode that only high level agents will be able to explore. The Maelstrom therefore offers seasonally a series of ten missions to be done in one go by choosing from a pull of operators predefined by the game (you must, however, have unlocked and reached the maximum level with them to be able to play. with and participate in the Maelstrom).

The peculiarity of these missions, besides the fact that we have to do them in the assembly line, is thatthey are also the target of mutations, alterations that spice things up even more. For now, information on this is being kept secret and I have only been able to see two of them: one making all monsters aggressive to begin with and another turning miasma into acid gnawing at points. life, a horror. Unfortunately, after a good big hour punctuated by many tests, my team and I could not go very far, so I will wait for the final version to say more about it, but as much to tell you that lovers of challenges will be in heaven.

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