Ghost Recon Wildlands: In the right direction

This past weekend I got to check out the Ghost Recon: Wildlands beta and boy was it fun. Ubisoft’s shooters of late haven’t been the most exciting and despite all the effort they are putting into reviving The Division and Rainbow Six Siege, I’m still not sold. Ghost Recon: Wildlands however was just fun. Yes, mechanics need to be fine-tuned, but it’s a beta.

The game puts you in a four-man squad as you travel across Bolivia, dismantling a drug cartel. The game is split into various regions, each with an important member of the Santa Blanca Cartel, take out enough and you get access to the local general and after all the generals are done you unlock the big boss himself.

As you work your way across the landscapes of Bolivia you can’t help but feel like a spec ops agent in the field. The amount of time it takes to get from point A to point B was frustrating and here in the beta we only had one district; the actual map is about 10 times the size and looks gorgeous. Rivers, mountains, fields and of the now infamous Ghost Recon Wildlands Tractors... the game does a great job in creating that gorgeous immersive world. The driving mechanics still need a bit of work as the cars feel light and inconsistent, and some of the physics mechanics are still off, like being able to drive up a mountain with a tractor.

In terms of gunplay, the enemies are no longer bullet sponges like in The Division, and higher difficulties just make them more accurate and lethal, making it much harder to approach each mission. The games customisation also gives you the ability to play each mission the way you want. Go guns blazing with LMG’s or take a stealthy approach with drone recon and coordinated sniping and melee takedowns.

At the end of the day Ghost Recon Wildlands is still far from polished but its headed in the right direction and even though the game lets you play singleplayer I’d advise you to find three willing friends and go nuts in the mountains of Bolivia!