Rainbow Six Extraction review – Call of Duty’s zombie mode crossed with XCOM’s alien invaders

PC, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One Xbox Series X/S; Ubisoft
This tense co-operative shooter is thoroughly entertaining, as much for the ideas it borrows as the ideas it comes up with

Sometimes a video game can be thoroughly entertaining, not for any new ideas it brings to the table, but for the way in which it combines a lot of old ideas into an excitingly fresh experience. The latest shooter from Ubisoft's Tom Clancy interactive universe is a fine example.

Set in an alternative Rainbow Six timeline where Earth has been invaded by a race of swampy, Lovecraftian aliens known as the Archaeans, it stars the spec-ops warriors from the multiplayer shooter hit Siege as they set out to kick ET's ass. Players form teams of three operatives, each with their own special skills and weapons, and then go into alien invasion sites to kill monsters and get things done. Every site is divided into three escalatingly difficult zones, with different objectives, and players can choose to exfiltrate after each section or gamble on not getting killed and continue on to the end, for greater rewards.