Rainbow Six Extraction: How to defeat Rooter, Spiker, Smasher and Tormentor

Bill Cooney

The big news from the Ubisoft Forward presentation at E3 2021, at least for Rainbow Six fans, was for the shooter’s new game named Extraction, and we got an in-depth view on the enemies we’ll be fighting.

We got more info than ever before on Rainbow Six Extraction, the newest title in the franchise, at E3 2021, including an extensive look at some of the types of enemies known as the Archaeans.

Ubisoft didn’t just give us a first-hand look at our new foes in the brand-new gameplay trailer, but they also pretty much walked us through how to take most of them out. If you missed the show, we’ve got all the info right here.

How to defeat Rainbow Six Extraction’s Rooter

The rooter can trap players in front of it.

One of the first Archaean’s we got a look at was the Rooter, which would definitely be freaky if you ran right into one with no warning around a corner. These aliens can trap a player in place if you get caught in front of them, but they don’t seem to be able to move once their ability is activated.

This makes it seem pretty simple to get around behind them and take them out from that angle. Attacking from the back seems to be a good strategy for most of the higher-tier foes, as you’ll see while we continue.

How to defeat Rainbow Six Extraction’s Spiker

Spikers offer ranged resistance to players with armor-piercing rounds.

Spikers offer some of the only ranged opposition to players in Extraction, that we’ve seen so far at least. The trick, as with the Rooters, is to get behind them, unlike the Rooters though Spikers can move while blasting away.

So, as we see in the trailer, the strategy for them seems to be distracting them to focus on something else either with abilities or your weapon in a pinch, and taking care of them from the back.

How to defeat Rainbow Six Extraction’s Smasher

Without a doubt, the Smashers are the Archaean’s heavy hitters.

Smashers were the largest Archaean we saw during the trailers, unless you count the parasite ooze, which is big in a different way. Smashers literally smash through walls to reveal themselves to players, and charge in a single direction dealing devastating damage in their wake.

If you’ve been paying attention during the last two foes, or have ever faced a large powerful enemy in a game before, you can probably guess the plan here is to sidestep or get out of the way during the charge, approach the weakspot from the rear, and go to work as before.

How to defeat Rainbow Six Extraction’s Tormentor

As the name implies, these elite enemies seem some of the toughest we’ve seen so far.

Finally we come to the Tormentor, one of the last Archaean’s featured in the Extraction gameplay trailer. This bad boy is capable of teleporting around the Parasite’s ooze to attack players from every different angle. So for once that means the trick here isn’t to attack from the back.

So what is it? From what we can tell so far, the secret to beating the Tormentors is simply staying alive. Setting up in an area without the black sludge on the floor, and doing your best to remove as much as you can from the map will help, but survival is goal number one here.


For everything else we know about Extraction, check out our official article on the E3 reveal, and stay tuned for more news on Rainbow Six’s latest title.

About The Author

Bill is a former writer at Dexerto based in Iowa, who covered esports, gaming and online entertainment for more than two years. With the US team, Bill covered Overwatch, CSGO, Influencer culture, and everything in between.