Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands review

Reviewed on: PS4

It’s always good when a new kind of game is born – or tries to be. Ghost Recon: Wildlands tries to assimilate the Third Person Shooter, the First Person Shooter and the Sandbox, all at the same time, and with a level system to help.

Story: 7

The story is set in Bolivia. A drug lord, known as El Sueño, decides to establish a base for a mega drug cartel in the country. Or worse: he wants to turn the country into a “drug paradise”, and he’ll do anything for it. From bribery to murder, El Sueño quickly gains ground inside the country, controlling not only the media but also the means of government and the military forces. What he can’t steal or bribe, he destroys.

The narrative style is initially great, but then comes the problem of co-op. While it’s good for gameplay, it leaves you lost among the missions you’re doing, have done, or will do, and that gets in the way of its own narrative.

Gameplay: 9

Ghost Recon: Wildlands shines most when you play with a team of friends. That’s when you really see the game shine. It turns out you need to be lucky enough to have friends who bought the game, or else rely on its matchmaking. But be warned: like all matchmaking, it’s a mess. Although the game is rated 16, you will obviously deal with the same “teams” that inhabit CoD or Battlefield. For those who don’t know, they’re kids.

Despite that, the servers’ work is almost flawless, providing a top-level co-op experience.

Audiovisual: 8

The game’s art is beautiful, and the equipment stays visually faithful to the real thing. Unfortunately, it lacked applicability in gameplay. A ghillie suit (those camouflage suits for snipers) brings no camouflage benefit at all in the game. It’s kind of asking too much of a game that is already trying so hard, but they should have made the clothes into equipment with benefits, since they went to the trouble of including them. The music boils down to the car radios and the occasional bunkers, and you usually can’t hear almost anything you know. It’s a weak point.

PlayStation 4 version