Ubisoft claims that you're fighting in one of the largest open worlds it's ever created, and while the review period didn't afford us the time to verify this claim, the game really does feel that large.
The hook for Wildlands is also the biggest change for the series to date: the transition from a traditional mission structure to an open-world setting. Unlike what you saw with Advanced Warfighter and onward, the character customization is more in line with something like The Division, as normal clothes are merged with military-style backpacks and boots. Your squad is comprised of soldiers who are generally good at everything instead of excelling at specifics. The XP system from Future Soldier is back, but now, you can only purchase new skills and boosts for your soldier instead of giving you those things once you reach the required level. The AI does a great job of healing you when you need it, and their attacks are good enough to handle the opposition. If you're averse to human interaction or don't have like-minded gamers to play with, the AI is fantastic for solo play. As expected, the game is tremendously fun if you're playing with other people. With that in mind, online play was extremely smooth. We played on live servers, but the pool of players was limited to press and a few developers, so it was a little more time-consuming to find a partner to team up with for a few fights. With no adversarial modes, your interactions with other players are in a strictly co-op sense, with the ability to work together for the whole game from beginning to end or on a mission-to-mission basis. There is no dedicated online mode here, as the game is always connected with drop-in/drop-out multiplayer. As long as the objective is met, there's no wrong way to approach a mission.Īside from the freedom in tackling missions, the franchise's other consistent feature is its online play. You can pick apart enemies at a distance by using your binoculars or drones to tag enemies while your partners snipe them. You can take the stealth approach by cutting off power for alarms and sneaking behind people to knock them out. You can go in with guns blazing like a standard shooter, but that'll likely get you killed quickly. The freedom to approach each mission any way you want is still here, but it's limited in some ways. Customizations include cosmetic paint jobs and modifications that can alter weapon stats. You can procure new weapons if you run out of ammo at an inopportune time, and you can customize every part of the guns in your possession. You can crouch or lie prone, and you have a regenerative health system if you take more shots than you want, but if you fall, you can be revived by your teammates once per fight. Everyone is affected by bullets in the same way, so it only takes a few good shots to down anyone, whether they're a regular person or a boss. You take command of a squad of four soldiers and can issue general commands at any time. That was the last straw, and the Ghosts are sent in to dismantle the group and help the local rebel unit along the way.īefore talking about the big changes, it should be noted that most of Ghost Recon's basic tenets are still present. Meanwhile, an undercover DEA agent was killed after the group discovered his betrayal. The government has struggled to fight them but decided to leave them alone, since the losses to their side were too great. Set in the present day, the game opens with the story of El Sueño, head of the Santa Blanca Cartel, reminiscing about the group's rise to power and subsequent takeover of Bolivia as a haven for cocaine production and trade.
Ghost Recon: Wildlands feels simultaneously familiar but very, very different.
Rainbow Six: Siege was a team-based, competitive, online-only tactical shooter that blossomed into one of its strongest titles yet.
The last two Tom Clancy games have changed dramatically because of these two elements. It can be focused like For Honor or a title that has robust online play, like TrackMania, or the subscription portion of the Just Dance series. The second focus has been a heavier use of online functionality in their titles. Assassin's Creed, The Crew, Far Cry and Watch_Dogs show they're willing to use a large stage for games. The first is a constant evolution of the open-world game concept. Over the last decade or so, Ubisoft has had two major focuses.