Wild Bolivian recon holidays

Review

Played on: Xbox One
Released: 2017

Ubisoft catered a lot for the open world aspect of coop shooters with their excellent The Division, review here, last year. TC's Ghost Recon Wildlands takes this coop aspect even further. If you enjoyed the coop aspect of woodland warfare in Far Cry 4, you'll love to learn that Wildlands is even more of this, only with ton more options.

In fact, it's a huge game solely about four special soldiers completing tasks in a gigantic open world, slowly taking down a huge narco cartel in Bolivia. Played either alone, with three other A.I. squad mates to command, or with friends, you're in for a massive task. The problem is, does it outstay it's welcome?

The Ghost Recon franchise has spanned various genres of shooters in it's franchise, in Wildlands there's no thread from previous entries though, it's a standalone title. It plays as a third person shooter, with precise aiming in first person to take down the enemies when shooting. There's a massive amount of missions to complete.

Let me share some of my experience.



The story is a standard Ubisoft Tom Clancy affair, some military introduction babble from a high ranking officer, a huge enemy operation needs taking down and some real life setting to fit in nicely, making it feel authentic. It's hardly a story that engages much emotion or atmosphere with the player, but the narrative introduction of each gang leader is at least exciting in it's movie style presentation.

Like most Ghost Recon titles, it's about the "not-so-distant" future of warfare with top end equipment for you to play around with.

The first mission eases you into the controls, manoeuvring a spy drone, marking enemies, setting up sniper synchronisation and silently taking down enemies. It's about being ghosts, stealthy as best you can, but luckily it allows you to go loud if you're spotted.

The noisy firefights are indeed tricky to survive rather than sneaking your way around, but at least it allows different approaches. I dislike stealth titles that end a mission if the player is spotted by the enemy. What's stopping you in full-on combat is about the odds against many enemies engaging you in heavy combat, once you're spotted.

Gunplay feels very satisfying, just what you'd expect from a Ubisoft shooter. I instantly settled into the controls and enjoyed covering behind objects, peeping out and firing through iron sights in first person. It brings happy memories of hours spent in Rainbow Six Vegas, switching between third and first person combat!



The main point of game is taking down the head of the cartel, however, he has a large roster of leaders working under him, each controlling a set area of the huge map. Arresting or killing these leaders gives you clues and intel towards taking down the next and so on. It's a fun way of portioning the game into more bite sized segments avoiding overwhelming the player.

The sheer size of the map is unbelievable, Far Cry 4 had two huge map sections, Wildlands has twenty. Walking from one end to the other will take you four and half hours! Exploring each map segment gives you access to new weapons, gun parts or experience points for upgrades to yourself, your gear and squad mates. There's even a local rebel group, which you can call in for backup in form of manpower or artillery too.

The upgrade system is a way of rewarding the player for grinding themselves up the level ladder. Even through you set out to play for tens and tens of hours, I doubt your're going to see the ending credits. Much like The Division, this is about making soldier classes, leveling them and enjoying the cooperative part.

I must stress though, if you don't mind a generic story and simply enjoy shooters, it can get lonely and repetitive on your own. The A.I. soldiers are really helpful though, but it's even more fun in coop!



Visually it's an impressive open world title, considering the vast landscape and draw distance the game engine is showing. Right up there with The Division level of detail, with tons of foliage, tall snowy mountains and varied nature terrains to explore.

To aid the traversal of the map, each segment has fast travel locations as well as numerous vehicles to drive, especially the helicopter gives a lovely birds eye view and showcases the vastness of the game world into the distance. The close up details are good too, sneaking about in blowing grass and branches everywhere.

My playthrough was on an Xbox One where the game is 900p, versus PS4's 1080p, although still it looks very clean. Here's hoping the Xbox One X version running 4K will look super sharp. Overall, a solid visual package for such a huge scaled game.

Update: The game has since received a massive Xbox One X update, upping the resolution to 1600p, improving textures and increasing draw distance. Albeit still at 30fps. It really cleans up the game, and looks stunning!

Wildlands suffers from some problems though, it's incredibly repetitive. Missions are mostly just about getting to a point, capturing or killing a wanted enemy, rinse and repeat. Be aware if a deep story, lots of cinematics and a linear singleplayer is your thing, there's nothing to find here.

I also encountered, a few times, a bug where I fell through the ground. Annoying, especially if I was in the middle of a mission. The A.I. is a bit easy too, only really tough in large groups, however their intelligence leaves somewhat to be desired.

I went in expecting Wildlands to be what it was, I did my research before buying. A such, I found it delivered what it promised. It could clearly have been a more cinematic experience had it followed a heavier narrative approach, something like the Far Cry games of late, but it aims for the online community of tactical military shooter fans.

There's tons of potential here for a deeper experience, but it never aimed for that and so my complaints will just remain as wish list for a potential sequel.

Buy the game with endless gunfights in mind and enjoy some incredibly solid, fun and tactical special forces mechanics and firefight action. Be warned though, it's repetitive nature will kick in sooner than later.