How to upgrade Operators in Rainbow Six Extraction: Leveling guide

Andrew Amos
Sledge, Nomad, and Hibana in Rainbow Six Extraction

Upgrading your Operators in Rainbow Six Extraction is a must to progress through the game’s harder difficulties. Each upgrade powers up your abilities, gadgets, and weaponry. We’ve got the ultimate Rainbow Six Extraction Operator leveling guide right here.

Rainbow Six Extraction is all about choosing the right Operator for the right mission, laying out the strategy, and clearing through those Archaeans. However, you will hit some barriers along the way that can be solved if you were just a little bit stronger.

That’s what makes upgrading Operators so important. Thankfully, Extraction’s leveling system is incredibly straight-forward, and provides you with plenty of powerful upgrades. We’ve got a guide to upgrading your Operators quickly in Rainbow Six Extraction and getting those level ups.

Rainbow Six Extraction Serial Scan mission
Get access to more powerful gadgets and weaponry by upgrading your Rainbow Six Extraction Operators.

Rainbow Six Extraction Operator leveling system explained

In Rainbow Six Extraction, you upgrade your operators by using them in your missions and completing objectives successfully. The more Archaeans you kill, objectives you complete, and side-missions you tick off, the more experience you’ll earn.

Leveling up is a key part of the Extraction experience. To attempt higher level missions, you need to have your operators at adequate levels. Each level will power up your abilities, give you access to new gadgets, and improve your arsenal. They also grant perks that increase your base stats as well as make your weapons more powerful with faster reloads, for example.

You can upgrade each Operator in Rainbow Six Extraction up to a maximum of Level 30.

Alibi getting speed upgrade in Rainbow Six Extraction
Level up your Rainbow Six Extraction Operators to get neat upgrades.

How to upgrade Operators fast in Rainbow Six Extraction

The quickest way to upgrade your Operators in Rainbow Six Extraction is to complete missions successfully. The more missions you do and Archaeans you kill, the better. However, there are some small pointers to help you out along the way.

The biggest one is don’t greed for that extra objective if you’re running low on resources ⁠— it’s better to just extract early and take your XP without potentially losing your Operator in combat.

The second is to be sure to complete your side objectives. You’ll get small objectives to complete across missions like scanning nests, so do those for a small hit of XP too. The more of these you finish, the faster your Operator level climbs.

Operator stuck in Archaean tree in Rainbow Six Extraction
If an Operator goes MIA in Rainbow Six Extraction, you’ll lose XP and levels.

How to free Operators in Rainbow Six Extraction

If you die during a Rainbow Six Extraction mission, your Operator will be missing in combat and unplayable. However, you can free them to regain access.

You need to re-attempt the mission to get your MIA Operator back, as well as complete the objective to free them. They will be kept alive in their stasis foam, but you need to fight back against the Archaeans’ sprawl to do so and free them from the tree. Be sure to shoot the pulsing red orbs on their way through the roots to weaken the tree’s grip and get your allies back.

Once you do, carry them to the extraction point and flee. You can earn Operator experience this way too, helping upgrade the rest of your team.

The MIA Operator will then be available to play again ⁠— although they’ll lose experience and a level and you’ll need to let them heal for a bit in your base.


That’s all you need to know about upgrading your Operators fast in Rainbow Six Extraction. Be sure to check out more of our guides when they launch in anticipation of the game’s January 20 release by keeping up to date with our Rainbow Six coverage.