Introduction

Ghost Recon Wildlands (GRW) is an open world sandbox set in the cheery backdrop of South American drug wars and CIA tomfoolery. You step into the boots of a tough as nails squad leader in charge of a squad only known as "the ghosts", and your mission is simple; destroy the Santa Blanca drug cartel and bring freedom and democracy to the people of Bolivia.

Cut to the chase

GRW is essentially Grand Theft Auto: Tales from Langley, in the sense that you are an armed psychopath with complete free reign to undertake your mission anyway you desire, with no consequences. The story in this game is bad, the characters are bad and forgetable, and the whole premise of the game is just ridiculous, but alas, we don't play videogames for their narratives, we play to have fun and I am delighted to say GRW is an incredibly fun game despite Ubisofts horrible reputation.

The Good

Destabilizing has never been so fun

After completing the tutorial mission, the world is your oyster. The map is divided into provinces, which each have their own mini-boss, and those mini bosses are led by 4 bosses. To unlock the big bosses, you must complete certain mini boss missions to "lure them out of hiding". What makes GRW unique is you can complete any mission, in any order, right from the getgo. You can finish the tutorial and fly to the other side of the map and complete those missions first if you wanted to do, as there is no arbitrary level cap or level scaling. Some provinces are more difficult than others, as the enemies may have better weapons, vehicles or armour, however they are absouletely beatable from the getgo, they just require a much more careful approach.

To help make your missions a little easier, you can put points into various upgrades for many things, like your drone (more on this shortly), your guns, your health and stamina, as well as being able to upgrade ammo carry limits. Points are aquired in a different way to alot of games too - instead of getting a point every time you level up, you can instead find skill points out in the wild, as well as earning them by levelling up. But upgrades require more than skill points, they also require amounts of the 3 resources in game - food, comms and fuel. These can all be found in the world and by completing supply raid missions and convoy missions, which whilst basic, are a fun diversion.

GRW offers a decent variety of mission types, ranging from defending a radio tower, to breaching broadcast stations, blowing up convoys, extracting important persons, wiping out bases and some stealth-only missions. The vast majority of these missions can be approached any way you like, however the meta for completing these is the stealthy approach. You can of course do a complete 180 and instead bomb them into submission from the comfort of your helicopter, however this can backfire if the mission involves keeping someone or something intact.

Drone warfare and its consequences

Much like real life, the drone is a vital weapon in the everchanging face of warfare, and it is no different when it comes to shady CIA operations in South America. However, instead of dropping predator missiles, drones are used mostly in a scouting capacity. Drones can "tag" enemies, which lets you see them through walls and know their every move, which is ridiculous but I believe that can be toggled off. Tagging aside, drones can also revive downed squadmates if you have the correct upgrades, and they can also disable enemy electrical equipment and can even be used as an explosive kamakazi. Its safe to say that the drone is the main gimmick of this game and it does not dissapoint. It can be upgraded to allow for larger operating range, more battery life and even armour upgrades, and the upgrades are incredibly useful as the drone is relatively weak at the start of the game.

In-depth customization

My personal favourite aspect of GRW is the extensive customization options not only for your operator, but for his guns too. There are dozens of guns from many of the worlds militaries, like the obligatory AKs and Armalites but also some lesser seen guns like the FAMAS and SA80. All guns in game have deep customization options, and you can pick and tweak practically any part of the gun to your liking. Extended magazines, extended barrels, folded stocks, and vice versa are just some of the many variables, and thats not taking into account the cosmetic side of things.

So you've customized your steel killing machines, now you need a cool outfit to go with it. There are many different styles that you can go for, with the default being a operator, plainclothes style. There are many plain clothes to choose from but the best customisation options lay in the proper military clothing. Theres a lot of garments and most of them can have any camoflauge you choose, with many real world camos present. With these camos, you can make almost any uniform you like. You can customize every aspect of your operator, down to the type of backpack he's wearing. Your operator can look as realistic or ridiculous as you please, as the customization is purely cosmetic, so wearing a ghilly suit won't conceal you anymore than wearing a luminous balaclava. My feelings are mixed on this, as whilst it does offer more player freedom in his choice of clothing, it is a bit immersion breaking when I can "sneak" around enemy territory wearing nothing but a pair of jeans.

It's a jungle out there

The world of GRW is huge. It makes GTA 5s world look like a prison cell. Forget driving from one side to the other, it just isn't feasible if you value your time just a little bit. Air travel is mandatory in this game, and when your high up in the clouds, you can see for yourself how vast the world is. In my opinion, it is second only to Just Cause 2 in terms of scale and variety. GRW has plenty of biomes, from rocky mountains to scorched deserts, to urban sprawls and dense jungles. GRW has a little bit of everything, and the world its self is very believable in scale. Sometimes, you can't just drive a car offroad with zero consequences, and instead you may have to ditch the vehicle entirely and continue on foot, which is something I absoulutely love. Being shot down whilst in an aircraft is paticularly fun because sometimes you end up quite literally in the middle of nowhere, with no connecting roads or settlements, just the wilderness and your wits. In a way, it is similar to ARMA, in that alot of the time will be spent marching to your objective, keeping wary of enemy patrols and avoiding them when possible (or destroying them).

The Bad

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

It has to be said that your AI squadmates are not the brightest. You can issue them basic commands like move, hold fire, and fire, but that is unfortuantely about as far as their special forces training takes them. The game is perfectly beatable with your AI buddies, but on the higher difficulties like Tier Mode (more on this soon), they serve only as meat shields and revivers. They will get stuck on terrain and objects fairly often and their accuracy is completely hit or miss, regardless of what upgrades they have. Sometimes they can clear areas without player input at all, other times, they get magdumped by one guy in a corner. Your buddies also have a tendency to get spotted and compromise your position in the process, which is extrememly annoying on the stealth-only missions. This game has multiplayer and it is far better with others, even randoms, but it is not completely unbearable alone unless you plan on playing the tier mode, which is essentially new game+. Thankfully, you can turn off AI squadmates completely and just play the game as a lone wolf, which is alot better for certain missions where stealth is of the essence.

Groundhog day

GRW has a plethora of missions, and there is a decent variety, however, you end up playing most of the mission types a couple hours in, and the rest of the game is essentially the same missions in different locations. Some won't mind this, others will hate it, but for me, it provides enough entertainment to play a few hours at a time. The missions do get harder, but only in the cheapest sense. Enemies don't get any more tactically aware, they don't use new vehicles, they simply deal more damage. There is also the worst sin of all - tailing missions. There are too many tailing missions. No one likes them, they just waste your time. They're the very definition of padding and this game has a fair few of them. In my opinion, there is more fun to be had simply targetting a random enemy stronghold and wiping it out than there is in alot of the main missions.

The Ugly

Microtransactions

Surprise surprise, Ubisoft game has microtransactions, or as they like to call it, "timesavers". Yes, instead of playing the game, you can spend 30 pieces of silver and get an XP boost for a few hours, or instead, you can buy guns, vehicles and even loot crates! Alot of guns are locked behind this paywall and cannot be obtained any other way, same with many of the cosmetic items, which is just a joke. What annoys me isn't the fact they're cramming this in a paid game, its the pointlessness of it. Player Level doesn't mean anything in this game and it can be maxxed out in a couple of days. There is no point at all to the XP boosters because its so easy without them anyways. I fail to see the point of this addition other than Ubisoft hoping they can catch the lowest hanging fruits who can't be arsed to actually play the game.

Uplay

I didn't play this game on PC so I have no firsthand experience of this, but from what I've been told, the it is a pain in the arse bloatware that collects personal information so yeah...no further explanation needed.

Summary

To summarise, GWR is a fun open world game but at the end of the day, it is an Ubisoft game, with all its "charm" and quirks. Like every Ubisoft game in recent memory, it's fine, if uninspired and theres fun to be had, but it feels like its missing something. Like it should've spent longer in the oven. Forgive the unscientific thought, but it has a vibe to it which all Ubisoft games have, and its not a good one. I hate to use the word "soulless", I really do, but it sure feels that way. The cashshop really ruined the good taste this game initially left in my mouth, which is a shame because this game is definetely worth buying if its on a considerable discount. It probably won't be a game you end up coming back to year after year, as theres little point, but it regularly goes on sale at 80% off. It is worth the few dollars/pounds because if you enjoy open world, dumbed down casual shooters, you'll easily get a good 50 hours out of this. Its casual enough to be played on a couch, but can get difficult enough to keep it semi-refreshing.