Signs pointed to a shaky spin-off from Rainbow Six: Siege’s popular Outbreak mode.
But no, I was totally wrong!
You see, the zombies here may be fewer in number, but they dont mess about.
This makes for a tactical spin on zombie-slaying that truly rewards teamwork, and its wonderful as a result.
No single-player allowed, but for the most part, Ubisoft let us run amok in this zombie-riddled land.
A total of 12 Operators were ours to test out and wed earn EXP to see how progression worked.
Thats of course when we actually earned EXP.
Our ragtag crew wasnt quite prepared for how challenging this game could be.
In this game, you and two other pals team up.
You choose a mission, select your Operators, and drop into plague-ville.
This is where it gets interesting.
Whats cool is that these tasks split each map into three segments.
On our first mission, it took us approximately two minutes to absolutely bottle it.
I figured that we needed it, you know?
The game doesnt have healing in the traditional sense.
Naturally, I never got the chance to use it.
flush the Aberrant Nests.
Thats one thing about this game.
The zombies are like one inter-connected unit, moreso than any other zombie game Ive ever played before.
They feel loosely connected, and at times, entirely separate from one another.
To call them zombies in Extraction is a bit disrespectful, sorry.
This game is home to more than some undead chumps.
The Archaens are an intelligent alien species formed from extraterrestrial gunk that covers maps like an oil spill.
That means youve got to pop them stealthily or avoid angering any nearby nasties.
Of which there are many.
Little Bloaters patrol maps like hounds.
Shoot their glowing backs and theyll explode, creating a loud bang.
Best to aim for the head, then.
Grunts often stand guarding chokepoints and if they detect you, theyll crouch down on their haunches and scream.
One Archaen can make its friends invisible if left to its own devices.
Each Archaen, no matter how big or small, is the equivalent of a tripwire.
Alert one and you may as well lay down and succumb to the horde.
At times it can be a bit frustrating, as one innocent slip-up can lead to total catastrophe.
But it also adds tremendous tension to each mission as a result.
Needless to say, we weren’t overly successful.
Eventually, we scraped the manual off the floor like some exhausted DIY-ers and settled on some Operator faves.
In fact, barely any of the Operators had abilities that did damage.
Instead, they were mainly info-gathering tools to help us plan our attack or defence.
The game trusts you to construct a plan over blasting everything to smithereens, and I like that.
Having finally read the manual, we crouched everywhere, making sure to produce as little noise as possible.
Wordlessly, wed scout ahead and ping points of interest at the start of each mission.
Sure, this was at the lowest difficulty (!
), but we were rewarded handsomely for our efforts with lots of EXP.
Ironically, I didn’t want to extract myself from the preview at all.
We’d found our momentum, and we’d formed a cohesive unit.
Alas, Ubisoft eventually had to pull the plug.
A Siege for those who want to swap the stresses of PvP for the challenges of PvE.
I’m very much looking forward to its release on January 20th in just a couple of weeks time.
