RAINBOW SIX EXTRACTION

We played Ubisoft’s slower, more methodical take on Left 4 Dead

- Morgan Park

It feels like ages ago that Rainbow Six Extraction was announced, but I just Googled it, and it turns out that was only 2019? Time flies in quarantine, especially for a game originally titled Quarantine. A year before that, Ubisoft proved that a co-op zombie game based on the PvP-focused Rainbow Six Siege could actually work, with a fun side mode.

That mode was called Outbreak, and it only lasted for a couple of weeks before it disappeared forever. At the time, the fun three-mission campaign gave us major Left 4 Dead vibes. Ubisoft absorbed feedback, formed an entirely new team within its Montreal studio, and got to work to flesh it out.

After a few hours playing Extraction, I’m starting to think it’s actually the anti-Left 4 Dead. It has safe rooms, special infected types, and scarce medkits, but Extraction’s pacing is completely different from the chaos I’m used to in co-op zombie slaying.

The mission our group of three played was an almost leisurely stroll with small bursts of action throughout. I never encountered that classic scenario where I’m hurrying down a hallway with 23 zombies (technically aliens called ‘parasites’ in Extraction) behind me in a full-sprint to eat my flesh. I did, however, have to pull Sledge out of a gooey alien cocoon, dodge fleshy scab growths that ambushed me from the ceiling, and trudge through black ooze that can coat every inch of a room. Gross, in a good way.

SNAIL’S PACE