Ghost Recon Wildlands Preview: Welcome to the Black Ops Sandbox

Ghost Recon Wildlands Preview: Welcome to the Black Ops Sandbox

I remember playing the original Ghost Recon constantly. It was a fun enough shooter but in retrospect some aspects were incredibly bizarre. The game has since continued from its first person days into a different breed of action game but now the franchise is being given a modern facelift that is going to breath new life into it and push it in a bold new direction.

Ghost Recon Wildlands sees you as an armed-to-the-teeth black ops soldier dropped into Bolivia to disrupt the extensive drug cartels. The game can be played by yourself or with four player online co-op and depending on how big your squad is, and how you approach the game, will reflect what ends up happening. The demo I played saw my self and three others tasked with finding and interrogating a local who had some info on a group of missing persons, so we had to go get him.

Though it’s unclear how players will spawn in when the game is finally released but for the time being the four of us were in pairs, and had to converge on the location and approach it as a team. Your soldier is capable of carrying three weapons at a time, an assault rifle, a sniper rifle, and a pistol; in addition to other grenades and gadgets (like the very useful drone). We found the spot and circled the location with the drones to make sure we targeted everyone in the area, and like true marksmen synchronized our targets and took out the exterior defenses. Someone missed their shot (I’m not saying it was me, but I’m not saying it wasn’t me either) and it spooked our target who jumped in a car and took off. I hoped on a bike while my teammates wrangled together their own cars to continue the chase.

We followed our target to a nearby gas station where he tried to hide among civilians, but I was able to find him and interrogate the necessary information out of him. He told us where to go, a nearby camp where we would find more information on the missing persons. Luckily a military helicopter was nearby so we all hoped in and flew to the location. This is where Ghost Recon Wildlands proves itself to be utterly jawdropping; the game is massive and, unlike some titles, isn’t locked down based on your progress. You can go to every corner of the map from the start, and it’s Ubisoft’s largest open world in a game, ever.

Our assault on the camp was a nearly perfect stealth approach and earmarked how important team work is. Myself and another Ghost moved through the camp while our teammates sniped away at enemy combatants before we could cross paths. Naturally, as these things are want to do, the bullets began flying as we completed our objective but there’s something satisfying, and in keeping with the roots of the game’s name, in completing your mission without firing a bullet. Don’t get me wrong, we fired a lot of them.

Ghost Recon Wildlands is the kind of cooperative action shooter that will totally immerse you in a world and keep you coming back. Run and gun with your friends or be a lone wolf, the world is your playground and all the toys are explosive. The game is still a few months away, which is good because the visuals aren’t totally up to par in some spots, and some of the NPCs look poor and react to nothing. The gameplay is fun and easy to master though, and who doesn’t want to be a black ops sniper in the wilderness?

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