Here's What REALLY Happened to Rainbow Six Extraction. - From the Perspective of a Day 1 Player.

[M.A.K.Dynasty]

So, I've seen a lot of general discussions going about in the community with a lot of people left confused about what this game is, what the status of this game is like, and why it only made its way to Steam now when content support for the game long ended. I've always wanted to personally address these concerns that the community has had for a long time, but have never had a big enough platform to do so until now. As such, I'll be giving an in depth timeline of events in the order that they happened with links to relevant information to support my claims. Strap in because this is going to be a long post.

(What's the game about?)

Rainbow Six Extraction is a three player co-op, tactical, alien horde shooter that can be played solo or with teams of up to 3 people. The project was spearheaded by former Ubisoft creative director, Patrik Methé (More on him later.), and a small dev team from Ubisoft Montreal. The game is powered by both the AnvilNext and AnvilNext 2.0 engines and supports cross play and cross progression on all platforms as well as a unique Buddy Pass system that allows 2 friends to play the game for free for up to 14 days once activated using buddy Pass tokens. Owners of both Siege and Extraction get access to all of the operators within Rainbow Six Extraction if they have not yet been unlocked in Siege. Initially, the game was titled "Rainbow Six Quarantine" when it was first revealed on June 10, 2019, but for obvious reasons, it was later changed to have the codename "Rainbow Six Parasite" before finally settling on the name "Rainbow Six Extraction". The game was finally released on January 20, 2022.

Now, before the games initial launch, there was some slight controversy regarding concerns about the games seemingly lack of of content that distinguished Extraction enough from Siege and more importantly that fact that the games initial asking price was for $60 on retail for just the standard edition of the game. The community was vocally outraged by this and game was hit with a delay for January 2022. It was here where we began to see a shift in the games marketing. Ubisoft focused their efforts on showing off that unrevealed content that they had been assuring players was within the game. This included things such as: Free Post-Launch and Endgame Content, showing off the many different alien variants along with the maps, missions or incursions, and the 4 difficulties, explaining how the Maelstrom Protocol worked, the aforementioned Buddy Pass as well information regarding the operators available, and most importantly revealing that the game would be receiving a price drop of $40 on retail for the base game. All of this proved to be favorable amongst the community and changed public perception to the be more positive than before. However, there was still of course some reasonable skepticism about the games performance to be had.

Furthermore, a common misconception about Extraction's launch is that was largely unsuccessful leading to the game performing poorly and seemingly dying on arrival. This is all factual untrue. Contrary to popular belief, Rainbow Six Extraction had a very successful launch. In it's first week alone, it garnered approximately 3 million players (See here: https://siege.gg/news/3026-rainbow-six-extraction-surpasses-3-million-players-in-first-week) before reaching a record all time peak at 5 million players as stated in Ubisoft's Third-Quarter 2021-2022 sales published on February 17, 2022 (See here: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/02/17/2387441/0/en/UBISOFT-REPORTS-THIRD-QUARTER-2021-22-SALES.html). This may not seem like a huge success, considering the heights that Siege has managed to reach, but what you have to take into consideration is that Rainbow Six Extraction is a niche game by design and intent compared to Siege which is designed to try to appeal and pander to a mainstream gaming audience and eSports scene. Crossing a 5 million player landmark in one month on top of having mostly positive, if somewhat average, review scores is without a doubt a huge success for such a niech title being made by a small dev team.

(What is the status of the game right now?)

This bring us to the present day. What happened to the game and why have the developers stopped producing brand new content? In truth, there is no concrete answer for this as nobody over at Ubisoft who have worked on the game or are in a higher position of power have given a reason for why development has stopped or even directly acknowledged that development has stopped. Some people speculate that the reason for the devs forgoing development had to do with low player numbers and poor performance, but as I've previously discussed, that can't possibly be the case. Ubisoft executives have only been speaking favorable about Extraction in conjunction to Siege and the Rainbow Six franchise post the games launch (See here: https://siege.gg/news/ubisoft-public-investor-report-earnings-call-expand-on-financial-situation-for-rainbow-six-series). In fact, the only two games that were released from Ubisoft last year that had reportedly underperformed were Mario + Rabbids 2 and Just Dance 2023 (See here: https://mynintendonews.com/2023/01/11/ubisoft-says-mario-rabbids-sparks-of-hope-just-dance-2023-underperformed/).

Although, I do have one very strong theory as to why the development of the game likely stopped. I did my my own research into the discussion when it was stated that development of Extraction ended months ago back in January or February of this year. I stated my search by looking up the names of the people who developed the game. It was here that I acme across some interesting information. Once I searched up the name of Extraction's creative director, Patrik Methé, I came across articles that stated that he had left Extraction and Ubisoft as a whole in order to work as the head of a brand new video game studio in Montreal called Krafton Montreal and has been with the company since October 2022 (See here: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/ex-ubisoft-devs-lead-kraftons-new-aaa-studio-in-montreal). It was around this time that communication with the devs started to slow down a bit even on the official Discord where they used to be moderately active. Methé was undoubtedly a strong figurehead for the game as he participated in numerous interviews discussing his vision for the game. Having been with the company for so long and having lots of experience, I have no doubt that losing him struck a big blow to the game's development moving forward.

As of right now, there are no plans for brand new content for Extraction. However, the official Rainbow Six Extraction Twitter did release a roadmap that revealed that all previous content, which mostly includes the the previous Crisis Events, will be recycled on a seasonal basis from the end of this year and beyond moving forward (See here:https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/game/rainbow-six/extraction/news-updates/1rEAt53Nb5MbnVf4lIZQQ3). This will give all new comers a chance to try out the events and era the rewards associated with them. Nobody will ever have to miss out on any content again.

In terms of playability, the game is still very active with a dedicated player base. I found myself playing the game for hours on end these past few months while trying to upgrade all of my characters and get them to prestige level. Queue times for me are never long and mostly take as long as 30 secs to 1 min for me to find a match in most cases. It should be noted that I live in the U.S. and from what I hear, North America, Europe, and perhaps South America are where the game is most populated. Despite being without any brand new content for 6 months now, the community is still going strong and has even seen in influx of more new players thanks to the game coming to PlayStation Plus and now Steam.

(Why have Ubisoft decided to put the game on Steam now?)

Ubisoft has been releasing a lot of their previous released titles on Steam now. Extraction was in fact revealed to be coming to Steam along with Far Cry 6 and some other games. I can only imagine that Ubsioft has realized siding with the Epic Games Store ultimately did not work in their favor and are deciding to change course. It just so happened that this decision camee after Extraction's content life span had ended.

(Conclusion)

Rainbow Six Extraction was a game that had massive potential that was ultimately let down by poor initial marketing, lackluster communication, and the creative director responsible for spearheading the project leaving the game and company to pursue better business endeavors. It also doesn't help that the game was plagued by people within the community spreading blatant and widespread misinformation regarding new content which mostly turned out to be fabricated leaving many people even more disappointed when the truth came out.

As disappointing as it is to hear, we as a community are all on our own. But at least hope that with this, some clarity will be given so that we can move forward and enjoy what we have. While the game won't receive brand new content, it is still being updated by Ubisoft support in case any bugs occur so if you have any issues take it up with them.

That's all for now folks.

[M.A.K.Dynasty]

Цитата допису Sir Lags-a-lot:

honestly the community ♥♥♥♥ on the game itself unjustly (specially to those who dont even own it lol). im really happy to have it on steam (ive played it on ubi) hoping for more attention from community
and ubi would decide to continue adding more content to it.

but man, lot of salty comments on discussion when they've never played it at all (and if they do, hopefully in neutral mindset not playing it because to look for something to fuel their hatred).

ps: this is on alternate universe of siege where alien zombie happened. not canon story of siege

That's just the community that you see on Steam. The community in general in game is pretty friendly.

[Machine Spirit]

With the exception of the pointless space mission tease when they extended the progression path, this feels like a complete game to me. It would be great if they kept the content flowing endlessly like with Siege, but Extraction doesn't feel like Ubisoft have left it in a bad place, there is a decent amount of content.

[Lizzy]

Цитата допису M.A.K.Dynasty:

Furthermore, a common misconception about Extraction's launch is that was largely unsuccessful leading to the game performing poorly and seemingly dying on arrival. This is all factual untrue. Contrary to popular belief, Rainbow Six Extraction had a very successful launch. In it's first week alone, it garnered approximately 3 million players (See here: https://siege.gg/news/3026-rainbow-six-extraction-surpasses-3-million-players-in-first-week) before reaching a record all time peak at 5 million players as stated in Ubisoft's Third-Quarter 2021-2022 sales published on February 17, 2022 (See here: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/02/17/2387441/0/en/UBISOFT-REPORTS-THIRD-QUARTER-2021-22-SALES.html). This may not seem like a huge success, considering the heights that Siege has managed to reach, but what you have to take into consideration is that Rainbow Six Extraction is a niche game by design and intent compared to Siege which is designed to try to appeal and pander to a mainstream gaming audience and eSports scene. Crossing a 5 million player landmark in one month on top of having mostly positive, if somewhat average, review scores is without a doubt a huge success for such a niech title being made by a small dev team.

I think the numbers are actually inflated due to gamepass back then. The first week 3 million players doesn't mean 3 million players that bought the game same for the peak.
Not to negate that research but stuff like that is very often missed.

Even i and a few friends tried it through gamepass back then and then waited for it to come to steam and grab it at a discount.

[M.A.K.Dynasty]

Цитата допису Lizzy:

Цитата допису M.A.K.Dynasty:

Furthermore, a common misconception about Extraction's launch is that was largely unsuccessful leading to the game performing poorly and seemingly dying on arrival. This is all factual untrue. Contrary to popular belief, Rainbow Six Extraction had a very successful launch. In it's first week alone, it garnered approximately 3 million players (See here: https://siege.gg/news/3026-rainbow-six-extraction-surpasses-3-million-players-in-first-week) before reaching a record all time peak at 5 million players as stated in Ubisoft's Third-Quarter 2021-2022 sales published on February 17, 2022 (See here: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/02/17/2387441/0/en/UBISOFT-REPORTS-THIRD-QUARTER-2021-22-SALES.html). This may not seem like a huge success, considering the heights that Siege has managed to reach, but what you have to take into consideration is that Rainbow Six Extraction is a niche game by design and intent compared to Siege which is designed to try to appeal and pander to a mainstream gaming audience and eSports scene. Crossing a 5 million player landmark in one month on top of having mostly positive, if somewhat average, review scores is without a doubt a huge success for such a niech title being made by a small dev team.

I think the numbers are actually inflated due to gamepass back then. The first week 3 million players doesn't mean 3 million players that bought the game same for the peak.
Not to negate that research but stuff like that is very often missed.

Even i and a few friends tried it through gamepass back then and then waited for it to come to steam and grab it at a discount.

That's a possibility, but it's still impressive numbers overall to have in one week. Especially considering nobody thought that the game would have that level of traction to begin with. Even I was shocked.

[Lizzy]

Цитата допису M.A.K.Dynasty:

Цитата допису Lizzy:

I think the numbers are actually inflated due to gamepass back then. The first week 3 million players doesn't mean 3 million players that bought the game same for the peak.
Not to negate that research but stuff like that is very often missed.

Even i and a few friends tried it through gamepass back then and then waited for it to come to steam and grab it at a discount.

That's a possibility, but it's still impressive numbers overall to have in one week. Especially considering nobody thought that the game would have that level of traction to begin with. Even I was shocked.

It is impressive indeed but the issue is i think like mentioned those are very inflated probably due to the gamepass addition and or the buddy pass.
For example looking through that report they tiptoe around alot and explicitly say that players will grow through the free options like buddy pass or gamepass. It sounds alot like them depending on these avenues because their sales where very low and they couldn't get long term players into the door but hoped that these help.
Like for example Blizzard inflates their Player numbers all the time and count people that log in one time or that log into battlenet etc. same for the e-sport streaming side.

Also it's normal to have executives talk positively about a product because they want to have their investor etc. see that things are going well.

Like it sounds like they had alot of people that tried the game out for "free" but didn't stick to it long term which then led to no real profits and them canceling the pipeline. Because if it did very well they would boast sales numbers in some way like any other company. For example like Bookings of MTX etc.

Also with the creative director leaving they would have had probably already content planned 4-6 months in advance like pretty much any studio does. And they would have replaced him when they saw a long term sustainability for the product and good revenue.

[M.A.K.Dynasty]

Цитата допису Lizzy:

Цитата допису M.A.K.Dynasty:

That's a possibility, but it's still impressive numbers overall to have in one week. Especially considering nobody thought that the game would have that level of traction to begin with. Even I was shocked.

It is impressive indeed but the issue is i think like mentioned those are very inflated probably due to the gamepass addition and or the buddy pass.
For example looking through that report they tiptoe around alot and explicitly say that players will grow through the free options like buddy pass or gamepass. It sounds alot like them depending on these avenues because their sales where very low and they couldn't get long term players into the door but hoped that these help.
Like for example Blizzard inflates their Player numbers all the time and count people that log in one time or that log into battlenet etc. same for the e-sport streaming side.

Also it's normal to have executives talk positively about a product because they want to have their investor etc. see that things are going well.

Like it sounds like they had alot of people that tried the game out for "free" but didn't stick to it long term which then led to no real profits and them canceling the pipeline. Because if it did very well they would boast sales numbers in some way like any other company. For example like Bookings of MTX etc.

Also with the creative director leaving they would have had probably already content planned 4-6 months in advance like pretty much any studio does. And they would have replaced him when they saw a long term sustainability for the product and good revenue.

Good point. On that last note however, the game was shown to have content all the way up to the 3rd Crisis Event in the game files since Day 1 from what I heard from the community on Discord, so they more than likely had most of the game content that they decided on having in the final product mostly completed by the time the game was released. That would give them enough time to work on the final Crisis Event before Methé made his departure. Just speculation though.

[General Plastro]

I think your forgot to look at the broad picture, Ubisoft has been losing money for a while now, 2022 (lost 38% value) and now 2023 have been particularly tough on the company.

Even games with moderate success will not be prioritized when the company is really bleeding market value and since its a public trade company, even projected value is important.

[Lizzy]

Цитата допису M.A.K.Dynasty:

Цитата допису Lizzy:

It is impressive indeed but the issue is i think like mentioned those are very inflated probably due to the gamepass addition and or the buddy pass.
For example looking through that report they tiptoe around alot and explicitly say that players will grow through the free options like buddy pass or gamepass. It sounds alot like them depending on these avenues because their sales where very low and they couldn't get long term players into the door but hoped that these help.
Like for example Blizzard inflates their Player numbers all the time and count people that log in one time or that log into battlenet etc. same for the e-sport streaming side.

Also it's normal to have executives talk positively about a product because they want to have their investor etc. see that things are going well.

Like it sounds like they had alot of people that tried the game out for "free" but didn't stick to it long term which then led to no real profits and them canceling the pipeline. Because if it did very well they would boast sales numbers in some way like any other company. For example like Bookings of MTX etc.

Also with the creative director leaving they would have had probably already content planned 4-6 months in advance like pretty much any studio does. And they would have replaced him when they saw a long term sustainability for the product and good revenue.

Good point. On that last note however, the game was shown to have content all the way up to the 3rd Crisis Event in the game files since Day 1 from what I heard from the community on Discord, so they more than likely had most of the game content that they decided on having in the final product mostly completed by the time the game was released. That would give them enough time to work on the final Crisis Event before Methé made his departure. Just speculation though.

Yes that's when the content is ready. What i mean by planned is like stuff that's been planned out in a team that brainstorms and thinks what can be done like events or new types of enemies etc. those are often things that get planned out 4-6 months beforehand and then go through Team leaders etc. then they think about how to implement those things which takes a bit time and testing internally so that often these things are "ready" 2-3 months before they are released.

So to me it kinda makes sense that they saw early on that there is no revenue to get and to sustain a full Team of Devs working on said product. So they went by the normal content pipeline they already had. Implemented these things and had a small crew still there in case issues might arise like big game breaking bugs etc. till the end where they then said no more content.

[M.A.K.Dynasty]

Цитата допису General Plastro:

I think your forgot to look at the broad picture, Ubisoft has been losing money for a while now, 2022 (lost 38% value) and now 2023 have been particularly tough on the company.

Even games with moderate success will not be prioritized when the company is really bleeding market value and since its a public trade company, even projected value is important.

I'm aware of Ubisoft's financial woes at the moment. I just feel like Methé's departure from the project likely played a more direct negative impact on the games development. Considering that he seemingly had a strong vision for the game and his reasons for leaving the company had nothing to do with Ubisoft's financial troubles at the time and came before this years Third-Quarter.

[Looopeeeeeee]

Steam kids just hate. It's really sad a game can't be a game anymore. The launcher is more important than the game these days. Sad.

Thanks for posting the truth. Real R6 fam knows the deal.

[BlueAuran]

Цитата допису Looopeeeeeee:

Steam kids just hate. It's really sad a game can't be a game anymore. The launcher is more important than the game these days. Sad.

Thanks for posting the truth. Real R6 fam knows the deal.

Yes, I have found them quite hateful on average as well. YET it is pertinent to note that they are still just a small vocal minority...most people on here are just regular people...only because the troll wannabe's are so negative it seems bigger than it is. They LUV LUV LUV to attack me because that is their mentality...what they fail to realise is that I have WELL over 100K hours of video gaming in...my mind is more strategic for that than basically anyone else I know...so when a narcissistic troll tries to do the dastardly to me, they find out pretty quick how they definitely tried the WRONG one :) Instead of them stealing/taking energy from me, they wind up GIVING IT to me and everyone else watching.

[BlueAuran]

I DO find it STRANGE though that one fan who wrote a review and GOT like LOADS of awards for it is ADVOCATING people buy the game 2x basically. Like the game IS BARELY worth a purchase once, why would someone advocate buying it on two stores (here AND the one they already have on Uplay). Worse yet they got like 90 likes and maybe 3 FUNNY thumbs, so people obviously seem to think there is some value in that review. Seriously, avoid buying a game like this 2x...MAYBE after they make some PRO CONSUMER changes to it like they did to wildlands it will be WORTHY of more, yet until then, come on people, why would you advocate buying DOUBLE copies of a game like this?

[Fazbear Representative]

I never knew about the creative director leaving, along with Ubisoft losing a ton of money and undoubtably having layoffs, this definitely explains the lack of development, it's more than likely a moving of resources over to Siege, wild

[Siñor Stripper~Pole]

I played the quarintine event IN siege when they were proof of concepting it. It is, to this day, my favorite zombie/infected experience. SUCH a good mode. I was stoked for a full release and sad it was a 60$ game. Now that its 11 monies, I'm looking forward to playing it.

@OP, thank you for all of the info! It makes me sad it flew so well under the radar of so many people. I hope with the steam release it can get some new traction and player base!

[M.A.K.Dynasty]

Цитата допису Siñor Stripper~Pole:

I played the quarintine event IN siege when they were proof of concepting it. It is, to this day, my favorite zombie/infected experience. SUCH a good mode. I was stoked for a full release and sad it was a 60$ game. Now that its 11 monies, I'm looking forward to playing it.

@OP, thank you for all of the info! It makes me sad it flew so well under the radar of so many people. I hope with the steam release it can get some new traction and player base!

No problem. I only aim to keep the community informed.