Rainbow Six Extraction: How to heal your operators and other health tips

Operator looking at medkit
Managing your Operators' health is a major part of Rainbow Six Extraction (Image credit: Future)

Rainbow Six Extraction is slightly complicated when it comes to health. Keeping your Operators up and running does take some management, both in the field and out of it. Getting your head around it will help you keep your favorite character's available as often as possible though.

When you’re fighting a gooey alien threat, getting some damage done to you is going to happen sometimes. However, in Rainbow Six Extraction that damage can travel with you once you extract from a mission.   

If you’ve been playing the game and are finding your favorite Operators out of action constantly, there are some things to know to get a better understanding of your team’s health

So, before we get into the business of healing your team, let’s gain an understanding of how health works in Rainbow Six Extraction.

 How does health work in Rainbow Six Extraction? 

Overhealed operator looking at medkit

Operators have 100 base health, but can 'overheal' by another 100. (Image credit: Future)

Health acts a little weird in Rainbow Six Extraction. It has a couple of nuances that you may not have your head around at the start, but the earlier you can learn about it, the easier your time will be. 

The main thing to consider is that some damage has long-lasting effects even after you leave an Incursion Protocol. Managing your health inside a mission will let you use the Operators you want to more often, and not have anyone on the injured reserve for a couple of missions. 

You launch into any mission with 100 base health and then an additional +50. Think of any health above the base 100 as additional. Any damage you take while still in that additional health won’t affect you once you leave. However, if you start taking hits and it goes into your base health, that will be lasting damage. 

Lasting damage will follow you outside of an Incursion Protocol. This means, that if you load into the next mission with the same Operator, they will have the same damaged health total. 

A great way to keep Operators healthy is, inside of a mission, to make sure to manage your additional health. You can ‘overheal’ by an additional 100 health. Every medkit will heal you for 65 health, so manage it, try to not get hit and you should be fine. 

There is one drawback to temporary health to keep in mind though. It does slowly drain away over time so keep an eye on it and refresh it with medkits when you find them. 

That all being said, damage is inevitable. You can get backed into a corner, take some tough swipes from a group of Archaeans, and barely get your Operator out. They arrive back to base wounded, so... what happens now? 

 How to heal your team in Rainbow Six Extraction 

experience points being turned into healing

Experience is turned into health at the end of an incursion. (Image credit: Future)

The short answer is to keep playing the game. As time goes on, your team will heal with each Incursion Protocol you do. However, there is a longer explanation. 

Health regeneration is based on performance. This means that you want to do well out in the world if you have a lot of Operators out of action. You can see this process translate at the end of an Incursion. When the experience is tallied up, a screen will pop up transferring that experience gain into healed health points. 

This does unfortunately mean that you can’t game the system and get your favorite operator back by jumping into missions and quickly extracting. You have to make sure you are in there completing objectives and doing well.

It's a good idea to have a solid rotation of Operators you like to use and share the experience. Outside of the healing benefits, it will also ensure your Operators remain equally leveled and you’ll have a more fully rounded REACT team.

  Can Operators die?  

operator finka inactive at 1 HP

Operators can become inactive but not die. (Image credit: Future)

It doesn’t appear that Operators can permanently die. The worst that can happen is that they become MIA. This will make them temporarily unplayable and will require you to mount a rescue mission to get them back. While MIA, it’s important to note that while they can't die, they can start to lose progress towards their levels.

Even if you fail to retrieve an Operator during an MIA mission, eventually they will magically return to base with some progress lost and at 1 health.  So don't worry, it doesn't appear you are in any danger of losing your favorite Operator forever. 

The worst your Operator can be is at 1 HP. They will remain inactive until they reach over 25 health, where you could then choose to play with them again. However, it's recommended you let your Operators recover fully before using them again. 

Patrick Dane
Gaming Guides Editor

Patrick Dane is TechRadar Gaming's Guides Editor. With nearly a decade in the games press, he's been a consistent voice in the industry. He's written for a plethora of major publications and travelled the world doing it. He also has a deep passion for games as a service and their potential to tell evolving stories. To wit, he has over 2000 hours in Destiny 2, over 1000 in Overwatch and is now deeply into Valorant.