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Ghost Recon: Wildlands seems like a fine game, if I could play it. It’s about the most Ubisoft game that I could think of, a co-op version of Far Cry, mixed with The Division and taking some cues from Rainbow Six Siege. We recently had the chance to check out the Wildlands BETA, and came away impressed with what Ubisoft have managed to put together, but somewhat weary of seeing the same gameplay mechanics we’ve seen for years now recycled yet again.

Set in Bolivia, which, in this story is a failed narco-state caught between the oppressive government Unidad forces and the narcoterrists of the Santa Blanca cartel. You are part of a small United States covert operations team sent to clean up the mess. It’s all very much Ooh Rah Americans saving the world sort of stuff. Technically you’re working your way up, taking out ever-higher ranking members of the cartel, but really the story is there to give you an excuse to stalk bases and kill some bad guys. Wildlands is a game that is unabashedly happy with murder, and all pretense of civility is tossed out the window in the name of fun shooty gameplay. And in fact realistic world-building in general is tossed out the window. That may be distressing to some, but what Ubisoft have created is not a world that is an attempt to mimic our own, but a sandbox designed just so for us to explore and have a good time with our buddies.

Despite this being only a portion of the world map, the map is huge. Wildlands gives you the walk, drive, boat and fly around a beautiful open world. You’re essentially transporting yourself and your three ops team members between a huge variety of outposts and villages chock full of enemies, and occasionally civilians and rebel AI buddies too. How you take on the outpost is up to you, though the game generally pushes you into a stealthier approach, unlike say Just Cause 3. You can use drones, binoculars and the environment to get a sense of the base and its defences before picking your way through it, or you can just land a helicopter right in the middle and take things as they come.

If playing alone your AI buddies aren’t the smartest – I found they lagged behind me significantly, and were often on another side of the village or base than I was. And of course unlike a real human, they don’t take the initiative, so they’re more alternate fire targets than any real help.

This is a game designed around co-op gameplay. Playing alone is fine, but the real stories and emergent gameplay experiences will be when teaming up with some buddies and developing intricate base infiltration tactics. And then having fun while it all falls apart. The game does give you the option of public matchmaking, but I can’t really recommend that. The specific type of communication is akin to what’s needed in Rainbow Six Siege or a raid from Destiny, unlike say a strike from the same. Strangers just can’t or won’t communicate at the level needed for it not to be frustrating. Especially in an open world public matchmaking isn’t the best way to play the game.

Apart from base storming there’s the usual Ubisoft multiplicity of collectables. Bits of intelligence, skill points, optional challenges and the like cover the map in a way that only Ubisoft can. The amount of stuff to do is already overwhelming, and you certainly won’t be short of diversions to spend some time with. Whether they will grab your attention is something that has yet to be proven.

But the main game of storming bases and shooting baddies is fairly satisfying. While normal traversal is over the shoulder third person, you have the option of switching between first person or third person shooting. Despite being somewhat skeptical of switching between first-person and third person, it works rather well. Both you and your cartel enemies go down fairly easily – no inexplicable bullet sponges (looking at you The Division) here. As a result, knowing the base you’re going up against before going in makes things much easier. Suppressors are on by default and if you play well they’ll never need to come off. But that’s rare. Most infiltrations end in some sort of firefight, where your drone missed tagging an enemy or a companion rebel AI does something stupid and ruins your plan.

It all ends up feeling a bit stealth-optional just as it is in Far Cry, which is fine by me but might annoy those looking for a different experience. Firefights weren’t too difficult even with the default loadout, but I feel that’s a part of the closed beta, and the full game will ramp up enemy difficulty as it develops.

There’s a wide variety of loadouts and customisability in nearly everything, from the colour of your skin to the colour of your gun. That said at the moment the character creator is relatively limited – there are no sliders for example, only set options. The clothing is somewhat limited too, but I can chalk this up to being a closed beta, rather than the full game. There were some #brands that were an unwelcome sight, but I think that’s just a personal preference of mine; others may love them.

I had issues connecting and playing with others with random but consistent disconnects and failed instance merging. There were extreme frame rate issues on my PC, leading me to lock to 30FPS, even with a powerful GPU hardware.

Overall the Wildlands BETA got me much more interested in a game that honestly I had written off. It offers a beautiful world and great gameplay. Bugs will be ironed out and the game will be (hopefully) optimised as development progresses.

But playing co-op is a must, and that can be a challenge. I’m sure there’s more to the game from what I saw but for people would play alone even half the time the way the game is structured isn’t really set up for them. Although it has all the trappings of a Ubisoft game, all of them, its appeal is actually quite niche. It’s too early to tell whether it will be successful or not, but it definitely already has the ingredients there. Whether you will have fun may depend on what you like to eat what you are being served.

 

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