Developer: Ubisoft Paris
Publisher: Ubisoft
Platform(s): PC ,PS4, Xbox One [Reviewed]
Release: March 7, 2017
Price: $59.99
Ghost Recon: Wildlands as with so many games from Ubisoft is a gorgeous looking game. But just like so many other Ubisoft titles the game serves as more a showcase of what their developers can do and a tech demo for what is yet to come. It’s a technological marvel for such a massive open world with zero load times, a graphical powerhouse with lush landscapes, but it suffers where so many Ubisoft games do in being stupidly repetitive.
Ghost Recon: Wildlands actually might just earn top honors as being the most repetitive game the company has ever released. It’s incredible how such a large and gorgeous open-world, based on a real country mind you, can be so empty and lifeless. This was evident before even taking down my first Santa Blanca cartel member.
Within the first hour or so, after clearing out my sixth or seventh enemy encampment (or outpost if you fancy Far Cry), everything began to blend into itself. I even manged to call out on our Twitch stream while going through the game the number of times the exact same building layout popped up.
Ubisoft is really great at creating tech demos, but it seems they have real issues with creating actual games. The world of Ghost Recon: Wildlands is large and beautiful, but the things for you to do are pretty lackluster and all things Ubisoft have already offered. Clear out this group of baddies, gather the intelligence, maybe interrogate some lackey and then kill the main boss.
The formula alters here and there, but by they time you are after your second cartel boss you are going to have seen everything the game has to offer. This sort of thing if what many have dubbed the “Ubisoft Formula” and it’s really beginning to wear thin. And while you won’t be climbing towers, you will be activating them in side-missions because Ubisoft seems incapable of breaking from their self-imposed “designed by committee” mold.
“Ghost Recon: Wildlands is simply a mediocre cake covered in really fancy frosting. “
There are some neat features in play, but all of them simply mask the generic gameplay as opposed to supplementing, or adding to the gameplay. Find an outpost on the map, recon it with your drone that can tag all the targets, then snipe them all, or just run in guns blazing. That’s basically the entire 20 hour campaign with little variation.
Enemy AI is also really stupid so unless you cause a GTA style ruckus, there is little threat from the Santa Blanca cartel if you pick them off slowly. But there is a really, REALLY big problem when you decide to engage enemies up close.
Even the most basic cartel grunts, people with no military or weapons training, have eyes like an eagle and shoot like top sharpshooters. You have no idea how utterly stupid it looks when a shirtless grunt is wrecking your shit with dual pistols, held sideways, from sniper range. They make Delta Operators look like Boy Scouts learning how to shoot a rifle for the first time.
And this happened more than once, where some pistol carrying asshole downed my team from behind fully covered foliage from 200-yards. That said the AI also has no idea how to deal with most situations as you could snipe half the base, or be engaged in an intense firefight while their buddies just casually stroll about while well within range. This goes for the NPC that wander about and can’t navigate a small pebble on the road.
One of the best moments of the game that we managed to capture on stream, was the team pulling up to an enemy held village, park the car line-of-sight, 20-feet away from the guy on guard, and start exposing how dumb the game AI really is. I popped the drone, flew it directly behind the baddie so you could clearly see us get into position in the middle of the street. We ran about and caused a huge traffic jam, but the enemy was blind to all of it.
It was a really hilarious example that showed Ghost Recon: Wildlands is more arcade-like shooter than anything resembling a war-like simulation. He eventually noticed the drone from the sound and he was immediately shot and, despite the 20-car pileup heading into town, nobody knew noticed.
The Division had a lot of issues, but one thing great about the game was the huge set-pieces it let you take part in. Ghost Recon: Wildlands has none of these, with every single location and encounter looking nearly identical. Never have I been so bored exploring a massive open-world that looks and is so devoid of life.
There is little incentive to go exploring just for the heck of it. Playing the game quickly gives you a “been there, done that” sort of feel that the game never really manages to shake. This is made worse because of the size of the open-world that requires a lot of time traveling. It’s almost too big, and feels like a chore going from area to area. This really sucks and kills the exploring aspect the game wants. You are really only going to venture into the wilds to see the pretty sights and kill the long time between info drops, not because the gameplay encourages it.
I’m also a little old-school and always go for the single player experience first with any game, and Ghost Recon: Wildlands features a prominent one that got me excited. Unfortunately, your AI buddies are dumber than a bag of rocks to the point where they give Delta Operators a terrible name. If these are “the best of the best” we are in real trouble. You’re going to be handling the entire game solo and you can’t depend on them to do much of anything other than the occasional “Sync Shot” to kick of every identical encounter. Oh, and they never shut up with their canned “military lingo” and stories that only serve to annoy rather than entertain.
You are going to want to run the game in multiplayer, in fact, it seems that the game was built for this which is sort of odd for an open-world game. But this can be hit or miss unless you already have a team set up, or friends that are getting the game. The times I jumped into a game everyone was just running around doing their own thing without anyone talking to each other.
There was a time where I figured my Xbox One headset was broken, but after testing it out, it was not. To be fair, there were a few times where a few people were chatting and attempting to formulate a plan, but chances are it just screaming or silence. You really do need an established group of people with the game to get the most out of it, as the co-op multiplayer experience saves the game.
That said, everything in Ghost Recon: Wildlands is so by the numbers that it almost hurts. Not only that, but so many of the gameplay elements on display have been done better by other Ubisoft games. There are tons of missions, but these all usually play out worse than the outposts did in in Far Cry, but strangely when you go online these become really exciting with the right group of people.
There is such a huge disparity here that it may have benefited the game if it were a multiplayer only game. But you force these two bits into one seamless experience and you end up with a inconsistent mess and a game that never really finds its own distinct voice.
Ubisoft is on a roll releasing mediocre games that are simply glorified tech demos, and Ghost Recon: Wildlands doesn’t break that mold. The game is simply a lesser version of games that already exist out there on the market with. It’s not as wild or fun as a game like Just Cause and fails to even outmatch other Ubisoft games like FarCry and The Division, of which it pulls it’s basic gameplay from.
And I figure I should mention that the game locked up on me twice, forcing me to reboot my Xbox One. One of these times was even during a livestream which was funny to us, as we manged to crash the game twice during our hands on at E3 when it was being demoed.
Final Score:
2.8/5
// Promoted Stories
About Author
