Extracting Fun

I’ve recently been wrestling with idea of extraction mechanics in games. I first started to think about it when UFO 50 came out and I got into Pilot Quest. That game is part idle/clicker, part Zelda randomizer and part extraction game. I find it fascinating. Ever since then, I’ve had this splinter in my brain about the extraction mechanic. What makes it so compelling? What types of games could it work in? And why do we seem to see it mostly in shooters and dungeon crawlers?

I don’t want to kick off this thread with a massive wall of text, but I’d like to lay a few things out. I have been playing many games that I consider “extraction games” and taking notes. To be clear, I have not been engaging with games you would traditionally consider “extraction shooters” and the like. Games like Escape From Tarkov, Dungeonborne, Dark and Darker, Hunt Showdown or Marauders. Rather games that I consider having bits of, or spins on, the idea of the extraction game.

In case you’re not familiar with these games, here is a quick description:

You typically enter a zone, engage in combat and looting to acquire better gear and then try to leave the zone before you die to claim anything to collected. You then return to some kind of hub to equip the new gear and then set back out. If you die, you lose what you have in the zone. Many of these games are PVP or PVPVE.

Here is a list of games I consider to be extraction games, or to have elements of the extraction game:

Deep Rock Galactic
The Dark Zone in The Division
Monster Hunter
Payday
Hitman Freelancer mode
Steamworld Heist
Pacific Drive
Sea of Thieves
Helldivers 2
Crab Attack

What games would you consider extraction games? What kind of games do you think could be adapted to use these mechanics? Are there other types of games you feel you could retroactively describe with more current language?

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The closest thing I can think of that I have played is maybe Soulslikes?

This mechanic is a real blindspot for me. I didn’t consider it until reading this post, but I had no conception what an “extraction game” even meant until now. I have heard the term a bunch and filed it in my brain as “thing I’m not interested in”, as the term is normally applied to games I don’t want to play.

I played The Division 2 when it was in open beta, as a friend of mine was big into the first game. I have never felt so repelled by a game, it was like swimming through tar.

I also don’t like Monster Hunter at all. I can sort of get into it but I don’t like how I feel after I’ve played it. The whole loop of small incremental upgrades to allow you to get more small incremental upgrades and so on and so on, it leaves me feeling very hollow. It’s a similar feeling to smoking weed for me, like I can get high and watch nature documentaries or whatever and feel okay in the moment but the next day I’d rather I had done something else. Totally understand the appeal, it’s just not for me.

Since you mentioned UFO 50, I guess Porgy is sort of an extraction metroidvania (extractoidvania? No? Yes? …No.) since you access upgrades by bringing them back to base, and successive upgrades allow you access more areas and stay underwater longer.

Thinking even farther outside the box, I would say ambitious early-game caving runs in Minecraft have this energy as well. You’re collecting resources and upgrading equipment as you go, and if you die down there the chances of losing all your stuff is not insignificant.

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Last year I played Helldivers 2 with friends a lot and one thing it had that made it an easy choice was how quick and frictionless it was to get into the action.

I haven’t really played any real extraction games like Tarkov but I’ve been a real Diablo II junkie back in the day, playing both on normal mode and hardcore.

Picking up new shinies, comparing stats and being able to do all that in short intervals with the option to engage in longer sessions if I wanted to was always the main allure for me.

The risk of losing it all was only occasionally thrilling so I played much more softcore than hardcore content.

What kept me from trying things like Tarkov was mostly an aversion to multi-player games because I lack a friend group to reliablyand regularly play these with.

From what I’ve heard about those types of games the fun might lie in similar aspects?

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I also find the general movement and gunplay of The Division to be a little too weighty and slow for my tastes. The Dark Zone in The Division 1 was a pretty interesting early Tarkov-like experience though.

I feel like a lot of people end up having a kind of Soulslike epiphany moment with Monster Hunter. I think if you approach Monster Hunter as some kind of grindy loot game, then it will feel hollow the way you describe. For me, Monster Hunter is a game about mastery. It’s learning to do all these intricate dances with the weapons, with the monster as your partner. You have to learn timings, little secrets here and there. And the reward for mastery? New outfits and weapons ranging from adorable to sick as hell. All that said, if you don’t click with it, then none of that is interesting or enticing. Just like From Software’s games.

Porgy is a good shout. I hadn’t considered that either! In my notes, I had been kicking around the idea of a Metroid type game with extraction mechanics. The ship as a homebase. Samus on a timer due to environmental hazard or oxygen or something. Having to bring upgrades back to the ship to slot them in. I had not realized I am just describing Porgy. When I go back to Porgy, I am so excited to view it through this lense. Thank you!

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I’m in the same boat. I played quite a bit of Helldivers 1 and 2, but don’t have a reliable group to try out more hardcore stuff like Tarkov or Dark and Darker. I think the intensity of these games, mixed with the perception that you might waste your precious game time losing progress rather than gaining it pushes people away. Intense session-based games are always fun with friends, but the prospect of LOSING something during this social experience doesn’t feel good to me most of the time.

This makes me wonder if people would be interested in an action RPG like Diablo where you have to surface with your loot to equip it. Maybe it’s covered in demon viscera, so it’s unusable until you take it topside and clean it? lol. I’m curious how you would push players to go deeper and risk death though. I imagine conservative players would find a couple of new pieces of gear and then surface over and over. Would you be interested in a Diablo game with more literal extraction mechanics?

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a twist on what you’re saying. But when I’m grinding in an RPG (when I played those more) heading out into the field, getting exp and money, and then heading back into town to save and buy items, is similar to extraction. It doesn’t happen every time, but there are points where you’re fighting tooth and claw to return to town and down to your last hp. Dragon Quest 1 has vibes like this.

I play persona games similarly too. Delving into the dungeon until you’re within an inch of your life and then escaping with the rewards. Part of the extraction there is also maximizing your dungeon time so you can spend the other days of the month socializing etc.

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I totally agree with this. JRPG dungeon crawling was another thing that made me thing about extraction as an interesting mechanic in more than just dedicated games. Maximizing your time in Tartarus in Persona 3 or trying to get back to town in those old DQ and FF games gives a similar vibe as getting out of the “zone” in more modern extraction focused games.

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As long as they get the dungeon gameplay right I’d be down for that in a heartbeat!

I’ve actually been feeling the itch to play Diablo II Resurrected for a while now. Show me the right ad and I’d be the easiest to convince customer probably

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i know this answer is sorta obstinate but
isn’t Wario Land sort of an extraction game then?

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Yes! These are exactly the kinds of thoughts that I’ve been noodling with. Wario Land is a perfect example of something you wouldn’t immediately consider an extraction game, but of course it is. Get in, get the stuff and get out. You risk more going for everything in the level and when it’s time to cash out, the intensity ramps up with a time limit.

As a bit of an aside, I think Wario Land might be fun as one of Nintendo’s battle royale entries. This would add more urgency to the first half of a Wario Land level if you knew you had to make some kind of time cutoff before a bunch of other people.

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Back in the day of Diablo I people would do challenge runs that incorporate some of the stuff you’ve talked about. They called them iron man runs. You’d get a character and completely strip them of all items of any kind, you then enter the dungeon and aren’t allowed to leave. So you try to make it all the way to Diablo with whatever you piece together along the way or die trying.

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I love this idea! It doesn’t incorporate an extraction mechanic, but I get the idea of losing it all if you don’t succeed. I will be trying this at some point this weekend. Thank you! I wonder if there is a clean way to work in some kind of “cash out” mechanic for heading back to Tristram. I fear that would remove too much of the tension though. The prospect of never being able to leave the dungeon is just too interesting.

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I ended up getting Diablo 1 running on the SteamDeck and tried an Iron Man run. Surprisingly, I was not as into it as I was anticipating. It was awesome to revisit Diablo, but after a bit I was done. Not having the reprieve of going to town really messes with the flow of Diablo for me. I’m glad I tried it out though. Diablo was truly a special game, but this kind of challenge run is not for me.

I do think that an ARPG like this could really work with some kind of risk/reward and cash out system. I imagine increasing difficulty the more time spent in a given dungeon delve. Or maybe health pots are switched to an Estus type system like in the Souls games. I still like the idea of items being unusable or worse until you bring them topside to repair/clean/identify. Like how some found weapons are in Metaphor ReFantazio. Usable when you find them but upgraded and given special traits when cleansed at a church.

Thanks again for the recommendation @Herb!

If anyone else has any other games they think have aspects of an extraction game, I’d love to hear about them. It’s been cool looking at so many games through this lens! I recommend everyone check out State of Decay 2 if you can. I’ve been playing it a lot lately. It’s a survival zombie game at face value, but it has a bunch of difficulty knobs you can turn. Upping the lethality of the game and decreasing resources makes the survival aspects more prevalent. It also turns every outing to look for supplies into a tiny extraction mission. I consider it a great example of the extraction mechanic!

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Is Octopus (Game & Watch) the original extraction game?

Game&Watch-Octopus

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incredible. My favorite GW game. The octopus has so much character and the risk reward element is so tantalizing. This one is hard to put down. Definitely an extraction game

in capitalism are all games extraction games?

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Kind of an orthogonal jump: Sonic Adventure and some platformers of the era have extraction mechanics in them. Collecting animals or power-ups and then using them in the Chao garden is a kind of extraction-to-resource-management, especially since Sonic Adventure is deliberate about separating its action zones from its adventure areas and Chao garden.

Real Time Strategy games also have an extraction ethos within them. Securing resources on the map and getting them can be risky; in Age of Empires II, securing more stone or gold can force a player (particularly a cautious one like me) to extend further than is comfortable. The risk is losing villagers or the resources made to build a forward base (towers, walls, castles, units). Homeworld also engages in this sort of extraction/scavenging, both with resource collectors and with the option of capturing and converting enemy vessels. Getting good at doing so makes for much more comfortable playthroughs.

As someone who didn’t play it much, isn’t that Phantasy Star Online? Are MMOs or RPGs with their “instances” a sort of ground in between extraction-as-mechanic and extraction-as-genre?

Anyway, yeah, it’s cool that games took extraction from being a mechanic embedded in other genres to its own core to a genre. Lethal Company is my recent favorite in that respect, mainly due to the sense of real vulnerability and temporariness: you can buy better equipment and go to better planets, but you’re just a bad few days (or a party wipe) away from having to start over.

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I had also considered PSO and instanced dungeons in MMOs to be extraction based. If you die in the original PSO i believe you drop your current equipment and money. Having to effectively corpse run to get it back. I also believe anyone can pick that stuff up, so it’s quite the risk if you’re not playing with a trustworthy group!

Lethal Company and the like are definitely nailing the core extraction mechanic. I also like that it’s not combat focused. It adds just enough tension, without getting stressful. And since you’re so weak, you don’t usually get mad when things go wrong. The deck was stacked against you. You are almost SUPPOSED to fail with your team and laugh about it. Great take on the idea

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similar line there’s an arcade game I can’t remember the name of that is similar to digdug or mr do where you dig underground and avoid enemies

the gimmick is that you start at the top on the surface and lead a rope behind you and if any enemies hit your rope you die

while I can’t remember that game, Tinkle Pit has a similar vibe but with a top down perspective

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This sounds like inverted Roc 'N Rope mixed with Spelunky. If you recall the name of the game, let us know!

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