How to kill a Sludge without it dividing in Rainbow Six Extraction

A Sludge is basically an especially aggressive blob of the Sprawl that you’ll find spreading across every Hot-Zone in Rainbow Six Extraction. The Sludge is a low-level enemy, so it more commonly spawns on Moderate Threat Level, but its appearances are always random, so you might need to try a few incursions before you encounter one.

Related: How to take down Breachers or Bloaters in Rainbow Six Extraction

The fourth set of Study objectives in the San Francisco region, Caustic Buddies, focuses on the Sludge, and one of those objectives, Keep It Clean, tasks you with killing a Sludge without it dividing. You’ve probably encountered Sludge up to this point in the game, and noticed that it always divides when you damage it, so you might be wondering how it’s possible to prevent it from dividing. Well, like a lot of things in Rainbow Six Extraction, it’s simple when you know how.

While bullets fired by rifles, pistols, submachine guns, and light machine guns will all cause a Sludge to divide, a well-aimed, close-range, direct hit from a shotgun will kill it outright before it starts getting any funny ideas about starting a threesome. So, if you’re trying to complete this study, always select an Operator with a shotgun. Make sure you get up close to the Sludge and aim down sights to make sure you get it right in the center. A glancing blow from a shotgun shell might cause it to divide.

If you prefer picking off targets from long range and don’t want to take a shotgun, you can also kill a Sludge with an explosive to prevent it from dividing. We found a Sludge on the ceiling and placed three Claymores underneath it (just to be sure), then shot it once with a pistol to make it drop down. See the sequence of screenshots below for a visual, blow-by-blow account. It was overkill but very effective. You could also use a Fragmentation Grenade, Nitro Cell, or Arc Mine, but each option is more excessive than the last.