The first major publisher event of E3 2021, Ubisoft Forward, started Saturday afternoon with one of its most anticipated upcoming releases, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Extraction. The cooperative multiplayer FPS's segment of the show started with a cinematic trailer. Within that trailer, Ubisoft revealed some big Rainbow Six Extraction gameplay details. To start, Ubisoft revealed several of the enemy types players will encounter in Rainbow Six Extraction, but followed that up with some other key feature additions.
Enemies in Rainbow Six Extraction come from a parasitic race of aliens called the archaens. These aliens take many forms, all of which are threatening. The simplest form of archaen is called the Sprawl, a thick black goo that spreads in reaction to player activity. From there, the enemy types become more familiar to co-op shooter players. The Spiker enemy type attacks from range with large shards it pulls from its body, the Reacher crawls along the ground and explodes on contact, and the Tormentor grows suddenly from the Sprawl and can change shape.
The last unit shared in the initial Rainbow Six Extraction trailer is perhaps the most interesting. It's named the Apex and it's insinuated to be the leader unit of the archaens. The strength of this unit isn't immediately obvious, but it's clearly an enemy that players will have to watch for. Perhaps it makes other units strong or is required to eliminate to progress.
The list of Rainbow Six Extraction enemy types doesn't end there, however. Additional characters were introduced in Rainbow Six Extraction's gameplay reveal trailer. These new units include the Smasher, which is a large tanky enemy that'll be familiar to Left 4 Dead 2 players. There's also the Lurker, which shifted in and out of an invisible stealth mode. Ubisoft also confirmed that more enemy types will be revealed in time.
Players will kit themselves out with unique abilities, tech, and gadgets as they take on the role of a Rainbow Six Siege Operator. A majority of the player's kit will be familiar to Siege players, but Ubisoft will be introducing more features, too.
Rainbow Six Extraction's gameplay debut also made clear that the game will be very challenging. Players who "lose" risk throwing away much of their progress and upgrades. Lost Operators will also go "MIA" and won't be playable until they're recovered. Needless to say, Rainbow Six Extraction will offer a unique type of co-op multiplayer game for competitive players.
Rainbow Six Extraction releases September 22 on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
