Rainbow Six Extraction’s debut last month showcased that its blend of co-op action and stealth whilst fighting off an alien invasion felt unique and different to the style of co-op shooting we’ve seen of late. That is, experiences that take their cues from Valve’s seminal Left 4 Dead. As a spin-off of sorts to the popular (and competitive) Rainbow Six Siege it utilised that game’s focus on Operators with tactical gadgets on small maps to great effect.

Sending out a drone, staying in stealth, knowing exactly what lies ahead before making a move. All of that blended with fine tuned weapons and responsive gunplay.

Even though the pace could be described as slow, there was an arcade quality that also shone through thanks to the relatively quick nature of its Incursions. A lot quicker when things fell apart and your Operator got downed after one small mistake. And with the game now out in the wild for a few weeks, we had the chance to hands-on with the first in-game Crisis Event called ‘Spillover’ which went live over the weekend.



In it the stealth component of Extraction is set aside as you fend off alien hordes whilst trying to neutralise Sprawl Colonies. The tactical side of Extraction remains in full as careful Operator selection (defensive and support) will be one of the things that results in success over failure. The arrival of new-to-Extraction Zofia also ties in nicely to the Event as her grenade launcher is a surefire way to thin Archaean numbers. Which also works a treat when paired up with a Tachanka mounted turret.

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The stealth component of Extraction is set aside as you fend off alien hordes whilst trying to neutralise Sprawl Colonies.

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How the Crisis Event works is fairly similar to that of a traditional ‘horde mode’, albeit with a 25-minute timer always counting down. Setup and defence is key, choosing the right Sprawl Colonies to target, making sure you’ve got the right gear equipped (drones are essentially useless here), and knowing that as soon as you place a bomb on a Sprawl Colony it’ll trigger the arrival of the horde. The goal is to try and stop all 9 Sprawl Colonies on a map, within the time-limit, whilst legging it to the extraction zone in one piece.


Which is easier said than done - things get hectic real fast. But, thanks to the overall difficulty which increases the more Sprawl Colonies you close, ala the game’s Maelstrom Protocol mode, closing a few is doable. So even if you’re not that great skill-wise, you can still do your part. Closing all of them is by no means a simple straightforward test of skill, and in our time playing Spillover for a few hours, we managed to get 5 out of 9 sorted through chopping and changing and adapting our strategy on the fly.

Related: Our Full Rainbow Six Extraction Review

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The 25-minute time-limit definitely plays a major role in getting the full job done too, in that you’ll need to split up and close more than one Sprawl Colony at a time. Thankfully, the countdown timer for placing a new bomb doesn’t reset so there’s room to whittle the timers down a bit.


Without that key element of stealth, which drives the core Incursions in Rainbow Six Extraction, Spillover does add a new element of immediate fun and chaos. Equipped with an explosive belt that doubles the amount of grenades and things you can carry, one strategy we leaned on was running a squad with 9 explosive claymores each. Laying those down in a mess of red sensor lights as far as the eye could see... and then watching the fireworks.

With more resources than other modes, gadget and ability usage here is brought to the fore in ways that foster experimentation. Plus we got to 499 out of 500 eliminations, meaning we were one kill away from unlocking the auto-turret - which looked like a fair trade-off to lose a few claymores. Maybe.

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The goal is to try and stop all 9 Sprawl Colonies on a map, within the time-limit, whilst legging it to the extraction zone in one piece. Which is easier said than done - things get hectic real fast.

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As the first time-limited Crisis Event for Rainbow Six Extraction, Spillover presents a fun new take on the game’s blend of stealth, tactics, and co-op shooting by removing one of those three things. In a way it helps reinforce the solid mechanics across the entire experience, whilst bringing its version of a straight-up ‘horde mode’ with style.