Video Game Preview: Ghost Recon - Wildlands Beta

Developer Ubisoft
Publisher Ubisoft
Distributor Megarom
Genre Third-Person Shooter
Game modes Single Player, Multiplayer
Reviewed on Playstation 4

Available on PC, Xbox One

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Published February 13, 2017

Last weekend, I got my hands on the closed beta of Ghost Recon: Wildlands. The open-world military shooter had big ambitions. Pleasing fans of the old game is going to be no easy task. How was it, though?

Imagine Far Cry, Splinter Cell and Just Cause amalgamated into one open world title. That’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands. The stealth play feels like a well designed Splinter Cell title’s. The open world tomfoolery ranging from gliding to flying harks back to Far Cry. Gun smithing and design has the OCD feel of The Division. What we seem to have is a typical Ubisoft game that encompasses what they feel they do best, but with a unique tactical component.

Give me my machine gun

Almost every gun is immediately deadly. The same goes for you and the A.I. It means that you’re going to have to be careful, or risk getting caught. There are lethal and non-lethal options of play, and stealth is quite viable to use. Some missions don’t have much cover which makes that ninja play style tougher. One memorable mission had me scouting beforehand and marking every possible enemy around, only to end up hiding away until their alert state fell. When stealth does work, though, it works a charm. Enemies are quite sharp in Ghost Recon, and too sharp at times. One situation left me wondering how when from such a huge distance away enemies could spot me, and still hit accurately despite me using a suppressor, which should’ve masked my location well enough to induce some sort of panic.

One thing I did notice was missing, and was present in every Ghost Recon before this, was the breach and clear mechanics. Also, while planning felt more impromptu than previous titles the focus remained on the action. This is disappointing since some of the best moments in previous Ghost Recon games came from timing an assault. As a fan of previous Tom Clancy games this disappointed me.

Deadly and fun but sloppy (in places)

As for visuals, Ghost Recon is a beautiful game. Draw distances were not that great on PS4, the main reason to keep framerates up. There was some frame stuttering and texture pop-in, but that’s also because of the game being in beta. Close-up though, lighting and texture quality were pretty brilliant. Ubisoft know how to make good looking games. Their use of the day-night cycle livened up the world, and since I was a stealth player – made me adapt my play style according to lighting conditions.

The driving in Ghost Recon felt sloppy. For example, taking a Lamborghini lookalike on a dirt road should feel a little risky. It didn’t. Essentially you will turn through every bend at any speed you wish, and if you fall off the side, just drive right up and you’re back on track. The mountainous area in Wildlands didn’t lend itself to quick transport between areas either, and made the transit process quite monotonous. I hope that Ubisoft fix this in the future since having them in the game is no problem, but being forced to use a motorcar in some missions was too much of a chore.

Classic Ubisoft trademarks

Ubisoft’s open world mechanics work well here. Using a wing suit as a means of getting to missions is just as much fun as it was with Far Cry. That led me to using Airborne transport exclusively, since driving around felt like an inconvenience. Having all four members in your team being able to fly around with you on every helicopter or aeroplane degraded the driving portion of Wildlands.

The party system is a little inconsistent. While having a maximum group size of 4, fitting all 4 into your vehicle isn’t always possible. Wildlands provides motorcycles and sports cars, both of which only allow either 1 or 2 players. While your other teammates catch up, co-ordinating this effort with both A.I. and people can be a mission in itself.

That leads me to online play. Wildlands shines the most when playing with friends. Despite the serious military vibe the game carries the camaraderie one experiences while playing online outclasses anything solo play offers. The wealth of vehicles and distractions Wildlands has to offer has to be experienced with living teammates. If there’s a reason to buy the game, it’s this.

With great promise, comes great responsibility

Ubisoft’s sound work can’t be faulted here. I loved the authentic hispanic atmosphere, and couldn’t compliment the linguistic work any more. Where I found an issue was with the excess profanity. My main character found a reason to swear at every point in the game. This felt tacky, and not realistic at all.To conclude, I feel as if Ghost Recon: Wildlands could be the game to bridge the realism of Tom Clancy with the mania of Far Cry and other sandbox titles. Shooting mechanics were great, so was stealth when it worked. The beta had solid atmosphere, and remained a visual feast throughout my playthrough. Fans of the old Ghost Recon games will feel disappointed by some of the lacking features of the latest beta, though.

Ghost Recon: Wildlands releases on March 17, 2017 on PC, Xbox One and PS4.

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Zubayr could be defined as any one of these traits: Grizzled, optimistic, jaded, blunt, opinionated, irreverent and reserved. His experience was once carbon dated to the glory days of Doom and Duke Nukem 3D. It still amazes him how irrelevant those have become these days.Some say his tears generate DLC unlock codes, and that the WASD combination was discovered by his typo while on Yahoo Chat.