The End of Wildlands and The End of Ghost Recon

The End of Wildlands and The End of Ghost Recon
The Game That Had Real Promise... Where UbiSoft Fails Again

Sunday 30 Apr 2017 1:00 am
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A reader has mixed feelings upon completing Ghost Recon: Wildlands, as he enjoys the co-op but is frustrated at the shallow gameplay.

As my journey across the open mountains and drenched forests of Bolivia drew to a close I could not help but reflect on the idealised promise of the politicised, Clancy-verse open world title promised at E3 2015 and the resulting title released in March of this year. In truth, it was the social aspect that drew my small cadre of friends, and a trust in a license and the legacy of the brand that had begun on the PC with the original Ghost Recon title.

The original direction of the series always presented itself as a counterpoint to the claustrophobic tactical planning style of the original Rainbow Six games, that were set around breaching a building perimeter. For all its faults the recent Rainbow Six Siege was in truth a good Rainbow Six title, more akin to its predecessors than the more action-orientated Vegas series the previous generation.

Having delved into and experienced Siege my main point of criticism was the taut tactical planning experience was overshadowed by the more cavalier style of gameplay that has developed with the Battlefield and Call Of Duty players; now more evident in the execution phase when players would charge forward without putting thought or consideration into success.

Ghost Recon in contrast was a taut, relatively open world shooter that took elements of the tactical planning but had no mercy or forgiveness for cowboy diplomacy or gung-ho attitudes. Failure to plan and adapt within the original Ghost Recon universe was punishing and unforgiving. In 2017 it was met with a blasé quip from a companion, with barely a moment to register your shortcomings.

The latest entry into the Ghost franchise can, at best, be described as Far Cry with a thin veneer of realism painted onto its architecture. The tropes and clichés of the Ubisoft formula removed in the name of realism, resulting in a somewhat lacking, unintentionally dull, and extremely broken and bug-filled game. As a case in point, when my unit’s helicopter prepared to lift off for the final mission its rotor blades failed to move, no sound played. In short, a static image of a static helicopter rose upwards and jerked across a gloriously drawn map towards its destination in silence, the sound of the motor only loading when the helicopter was landing some minutes later.

A litany of errors and faults are not uncommon in the open world genre, and on occasion can be forgiving if the core game itself gives an indication or sense that they are an anomaly in an otherwise accomplished title. In Wildlands, alas, I found the problems became an irritant and a distraction. From motorbikes that could collide with moving trains with no visible damage, to extending limbs and repetitive and obtuse dialogue repeated ad nauseam.

An empty world of mindless civilians often wandering in their pre-programmed state across your field of fire, an omnipresent corrupt police force that could rival OCP from Delta City, and forgettable characters leaving little motivation to explore the familiar trope of recorded conversations and intelligence files. Never have I grown to loath an individual in recent times as I did my character, with her repeated criticism and insults when being revived.



After 50 hours I was prepared for my character to take the final bullet, with pleasure. It’s fitting in the final moments of play you come under intense enemy fire. My character was shot down, my PlayStation turned off. Journey’s end for a narcissistic, unappreciative individual; small mercies for me.

In the end, as I concluded my journey through this corrupt, hostile portrayal of Bolivia, my experience was tinged with sadness. What good memories I took from my time with Wildlands had been tested by an attempt to remove the fun from a proven formula in the pursuit of realism. This in turn raised more questions and issues than it resolved. If the broken climbing mechanic, that saw trained special forces soldiers hindered by a boulder half the size of their body, had been lifted directly from Assassins Creed, would it have been so out of keeping?

Perhaps it is best to view this iteration of the Ghost Recon franchise as an open world chat room. A game more akin to a militarised Super Mario Maker, where your best memories come from your play style and the limitations you place upon yourself. What positive memories and experiences I can take from this release do not come from the pre-determined hand-holding nature of the missions, which contrasts strikingly with the E3 trailer of multiple paths to solving an issue.

Instead, my enjoyment came from adapting the game to play like a traditional Ghost Recon title. For example, stripping down the HUD, removing the traditional player assists, heated map patches, and red dots. Within my unit we had a gentleman’s agreement before each mission that we would choose and ‘lock in’ our weapons, no changing in the field of combat. Going back to basics and playing the game like its predecessors gives an indication, a whiff, of what the developers were perhaps aiming for. If the largest criticism of Super Mario Maker was that Nintendo was pushing creativity away from themselves and onto the consumer then a similar comparison can be drawn here, with Ubisoft only fully realising its ambition when you strip away the hand-holding and go back to basics.

If Wildlands helps to illustrate the dangers of style over substance then perhaps it has served its purpose. For all its faults, the game world is stunning on a standard console, with noticeable upscaling on the PS4 Pro. Finding myself stopping during a mission to admire the scenery, as a storm thundered in the distance, was indicative of it being a visually attractive game and of the feeling of detachment created by the uninspired mission planning.

But the lasting memories will be the absence of substance and depth. So, as my time in Bolivia draws to a close, and my copy of Wildlands returns to a game exchange shop, I remove my rain-soaked, blood-covered bandana and remember a social gaming experience full of good memories of communal brothers in arms. But there’s also a sad, remorseful feeling for those of us who remember the more taut, tactical-planning of the earlier games.

By reader Charlesfwh