Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Extraction is a fun amalgamation of tactical shooting mechanics and an invasive alien sci-fi premise. Your enemies, the Archaeans, are varied and possess strange abilities, and various incursion objectives put all of your operators directly in danger — and you’ll likely pay the price if you don’t have certain tips and tricks up your sleeve.
All you have are your guns, wits, a few cool gadgets, and a handful of class abilities. That’s more than enough for skilled Operators to succeed, and this Rainbow Six Extraction guide will highlight some tips and tricks that will help you stay alive while completing objectives.
Rainbow Six Extraction Tips & Tricks
Stealth is King
All hell is ready to break loose at any time in R6E, and stealth is your best bet for avoiding that and staying alive against the chimera Archaeans. The vast majority of the time, there’s one tip to keep in mind: you should be crouch-walking to avoid making too much noise.
Check around corners and avoid enemy sightlines whenever possible. Most operatives can equip a suppressor to either their primary or secondary weapon as an attachment. You should always carry at least one stealth-oriented weapon. This will enable you to complete some objectives undetected.
Eliminate Sprawl
The black goo all over the place is Sprawl. This slows down your movement and makes the Archæans more lethal. It’s also easy to remove with this simple trick: just shoot it.
You never know when a fight is going to break out, so it’s almost always worth spending the time and ammo to get rid of any Sprawl. In particular, any area around an objective should be almost completely cleared before you actually start completing your tasks.
Smoke ‘em If You Got ’em
The very first grenade you are given in Rainbow Six Extraction is the smoke grenade, but don’t let that convince you it isn’t one of the best. Smoke grenades will blind Archæans, and there is so much utility in that. You can throw one into a crowd to allow you to sneak past. Or you can blind a group of enemies before picking them off one by one.
One trick is to use smoke grenades to block one direction while you fight enemies in another. You can even smoke an enemy right on top of you, and immediately use your knife for a takedown. This can save your entire operation when given the Biopsy Objective, requiring you to take down a specific enemy undetected with your blade.
Go Loud, Quietly
Yes, it’s usually best to be stealthy in Rainbow Six Extraction, but that doesn’t actually mean you have to be quiet. Firing a gun or creating an explosion won’t trigger the enemy summoning howl. Some very powerful guns cannot be suppressed, and that’s no problem if you just eliminate all the enemies around you.
Explosions can actually be very useful for knocking down weak walls or luring Archæans to one location. Unseen is undetected, even if you are making a racket. Check out our best builds guide for more info, as well as our best weapons guide.
Prep Before Beginning Objectives
R6E is a thinking man’s alien shooting game. One tip to always keep in mind is that prepping is the better part of valor. Take the time to prepare before attempting to complete an objective.
- Clear enemies from the immediate vicinity.
- Destroy nests.
- Close open doors.
- Seal openings using the barricades in your inventory.
If you are doing an objective like Sabotage, where you need to defend bombs, set up useful gadgets like mines and auto-turrets. For Specimen, where you need to lure an Archæans to a trap, clear the path in between. Starting work on an objective should be one of the last, not first, things you do.
ABS: Always Be Scouting
R6E is significantly more difficult if you don’t know where enemies are. Locating Archæans should be the very first thing you do when you enter a subzone. Drive the recon drone (one of the best REACT gadgets) around to spot and mark enemies. Throw scan grenades before entering rooms blind or use Operator abilities that detect movement. Whatever you do, make sure you are collecting intel and moving based on that information.
Know Your Health
Health in R6E comes in two varieties. Every operator has 100 points of standard health, represented by white in the health bar. This cannot be recovered in an incursion, taking your favorite characters out of action if it drops too low.
Temporary health, represented by blue, can be increased at any time. Any damage done to your operator comes out of temporary health first. As long as you keep your standard health up, you will remain fit for duty. Once that starts to dwindle, you should strongly consider heading for an extraction point, whether you’ve completed your objective or not. Otherwise, you risk your Operator going MIA.
Shoot Holes in or Look Through Walls
This trick isn’t very obvious when you first start playing Rainbow Six Extraction. Make sure to pay attention to walls. Your special UV flashlight will reveal enemies on the other side of destructible walls. This allows you to take them out from another room with no one being the wiser. You can even shoot small holes big enough to toss your recon drone into, allowing you to scout a room with relative safety.
Too subtle? You can always be like the Kool-Aid man and burst through walls, using explosives, Sledge’s hammer, or shotgun blasts to the studs. This is great for getting the drop on enemies, and getting directly from A to B.
Related guides
These tips and tricks are just the beginning when it comes to being an elite Operator in Rainbow Six Extraction. Don’t hesitate to experiment and try new things. You can always refer back to these tips as a refresher when you need them, click the links above, or head over to our official guides page.
