Rainbow Six: Extraction takes the series in a very different direction. You’ll still play as a team of Tier 1 Operators from real-world special forces organizations, but you’re up against something worse than tangos. An alien virus has spread across the globe, and Rainbow Six are sent in to sort out the zombie problem. This is a tactical PVE FPS, with just a slight whiff of Left 4 Dead or Back 4 Blood DNA. You and your team exploring abandoned, zombie-infested locales while completing semi-random objectives and dealing with semi-random hordes or enemies? That’s the essence of online cooperative experiences, and Rainbow Six: Extraction throws a few wrinkles in the formula.
There are so many choices at the start of the game, it’s easy to be overwhelmed — there are lots of Operators, each with their own special skills. There are multiple zombie types, and some unique challenges you’ll only find in Extraction. Using all your tools to overcome the undead is daunting, so we’re going to offer a few tips to help you get started.
Here’s a bonus tip: know all those tools you can use to lockdown doors and prevent wall destruction in Rainbow Six: Siege? They’re all here, and the undead will tear that stuff apart like tissue paper.
More Rainbow Six: Extraction guides:
Best Operators | Protean Boss Tips | How To Turn Sledge Into A Tank | How To Play Solo | Giant Shark Easter Egg
Beginner’s Guide | Tips & Tricks
Silencers Are Mandatory: Stealth is required for victory. Everyone absolutely must equip suppressors — you need to stay low, identify threats, then take them down quietly as much as possible. This isn’t always possible on certain objectives, but you should always aim to keep quiet. If you don’t have a suppressed primary weapon, always keep a suppressed secondary.
- When in stealth, it’s actually a better idea to avoid encounters. Don’t kill everything you see. Save your shots and only takeout targets in your path to the objective. If you can stay low and quiet, you can avoid a big shootout with more enemies spawning.
Taking Down Elites: Elites are dangerous rampaging monsters that appear during “Hunt” objectives. For a clean takedown, you’ll want to surround and eliminate these guys before they know what hits them. To do that, you’ll want Operators with offensive skills. You’ll want to stun, then attack the Elite from behind. Elites have a large exposed weak point on their back. If you’re caught, you can also use Smoke Grenades to stun your target.
- Vigil has the ERC-8 Disruptor, which basically turns Vigil invisible. He can quickly sneak behind an Elite and perfect a knife takedown.
- Ela has Grzmot Mines that stick onto opponents and cause stun. They’re very effective for stunning an Elite, then rush in to attack their weakpoint. A knife attack to the back does lots of damage.
- Jager can drop an Auto Turret that can absolutely wreck Elites if you don’t mind the noise. It also distracts them, making takedowns easier.
KO Makes Your Operators Go MIA: Getting KO’d is the worst in Extraction. If your Operator is downed, you’ll have to replay a mission to rescue them from the alien nest. You’ll want to prevent Operator KOs as much as possible — you can do this with Doc stims or especially with Rook armor plates.
- If you do get KO’d, replay missions on the lowest difficulty to make the save easy. The worst thing you can do is get KO’d again.
Grab A Healer: Beginning players need Doc — one of the best support operators in the game. Doc comes with a Stim Pistol that heals and can revive himself or teammates when downed. That makes him invaluable to any team.
- Tinker is another healer, but her heal is only temporary and degrades after a set amount of time. Doc’s heal is a permanent boost that increases your max health like an overshield. That makes Doc the only permanent “healer” in the game so far.
Support Your Team With Rook: Rook is another incredibly useful early-game operator thanks to his Armor Plate skill. Instead of healing, Rook can drop packs of Armor Plates that your teammates can collect to give themselves bonus armor.
- Armor gives enhanced damage resistance, and any operator wearing armor will always go into a downed state. Never a KO. That means you can be downed multiple times in a mission without entering a KO state. Incredibly useful, and you’re better off saving armor for KO prevention than damage prevention.
Locate Critical Objectives With Pulse: Pulse is an operator with a device that can see through walls to mark VIPs, MIAs and Nests. Spotting Nests early for your team is incredibly useful, and if your Operators are downed, you can find and rescue them by spotting MIAs. This isn’t as useful when your team has learned the ins-and-outs of every map, but for beginner’s this is one of the most solid support roles.
- You don’t have to do anything! Just sneak and bring up your scanner. Anything one operator sees will be marked for the rest of the team. No need for callouts. That makes this the easiest Operator to use if your team wants to stay sneaky.
Not All Objectives Are Created Equal: On every map of Extraction, you’ll get a random order of locations and objectives. Some objectives are significantly harder than orders. You’re better off just extracting from the mission before attempting them — especially if you have an uncoordinated team. If you’re looking to just level up early and don’t want to get your team wiped, look out for these objectives.
- Serial Scan: Capture a series of areas. This forces your team to stand still on a tiny patch of ground while you’re bombarded with enemies. On higher difficulties, this is a recipe for disaster.
- Decontamination: Eradicate 15~ Nests in an area. Nests are where enemies spawn, so this objective gets ridiculously hectic very, very quickly.
- Gateway: Enter a portal and battle the Protean. This portal takes you to a boss arena where a massive Protean attacks you. I highly recommend practicing this on lower difficulties. You’ll be swarmed by enemies while trying to fight the Protean. It is a very cool event, but not great for team survival.
Don’t Be Afraid To Use Your Cooldowns: Understanding your Operator abilities is crucial to overcoming the odds in Extraction. Certain characters have abilities that are on a cooldown — these are perfect for using in the middle of a fight, because they’ll regenerate by the time you need them next. Pop those cooldowns whenever you’re in a fight to make things easier, or wait for the bigger enemy types to give your team a sudden advantage.
- Also be aware of your Operators with limited supplies. Some Operators, like Doc mentioned above, only have a limited supply of their ability for the entire mission. They can’t get more in-mission. You can level up to increase your skill usage, but that’s it. For these, you’ll want to play it safe and save for emergencies.
How To Deal With Floating Green Orbs: In every mission, you’ll encounter weird green orbs that attach to Operators and explode. They don’t explode right away — only when they’re shot. If you want to get rid of them safely, get another Operator to melee attack the green orbs. This breaks them safely without causing them to explode and deal damage.
Always Go For The Objective First: No matter what, stick with your team and move toward the objective. Clear out enemies in your path, avoid activating nests, and stay in formation. There’s (usually) no reason to explore the map fully. You don’t want to slow your team down. Don’t make them wait for you! You just might get left behind during Extraction.
- Make sure to extract KO’d operators if possible. There’s no reason to leave them behind! If you want to explore for MIAs, wait until after the objective is cleared.
That covers 10 quick tips to get you started. Got your own pro-strats we need to know all about? Let us know what you want to see!
