It's a cold windy rainy Sunday evening in England as I write this, I want to share my thoughts on the Ghost Recon Wild Lands beta. I played it last weekend with a friend and I was super disappointed by it, although I'm aware it's a beta and a lot can change from final release. I'm not 100% sure how much will actually change though as it's due to be released in a month. My main concerns are that nothing about it feels like a Ghost Recon game.
I've played every Ghost Recon game, from Island Thunder on the original Xbox up until Future Soldier on the Xbox 360. I skipped that free to play phantoms one on pc. I'd regard the Ghost Recon series as one of my favourite series of shooters, with the GRAW games being my favourites.
Ghost Recon games have always been about intense situations, where the wrong move could cost you the mission. As the franchise progressed, the games took on a more cinematic approach while holding onto the features that made the old games great. In all of what I played of Wild Lands, not one situation felt intense or cinematic. The enemy AI felt lifeless along with the world around them. The cars driving on the streets didn't make the world feel believable, and the whole thing felt empty from mission to mission.
In the beta you had the opportunity to play in one region of the map. The map is made up of 21 regions and I assume you work your way through each region, taking down a specific member of the cartel until you reach the leader. To be able to take down the leader you have to carry out smaller missions in which you gain intel. This usually involves heading to a location, shooting some dudes and then grabbing a file. Each one of these felt boring. Doing pointless missions like this for another 20 regions feels about as entertaining as watching paint dry.
Once we'd gathered our juicy intel (it was about as juicy as a prune) we headed for the location of our hit. It took us to a drug production plant. Well, a building with a load of science-y stuff and very old PC's, which I assumed was used to access the dicky dark web. When we got there we shot some dudes and headed down stairs. Looking through some glass we witnessed a guy being tortured by the guy we had to kill, and a fat lass in a night dress. Me and a friend burst through the door and filled both of them with lead. Unfortunately we were too late as the guy being tortured was dead. He was in a pretty bad way, so I was doubtful that if we'd have arrived much earlier we'd have been able to save him. This was pretty much the end of the beta. You had the option to carry on roaming about, but honestly why would you want to.
There's another beta coming in a couple of weeks which is open so you're able to try it out for your self. If you're a fan of previous Ghost Recon games like myself, I think you'll find very little of what made the original games great.
It's such a shame as everything prior to this had me excited for the game. All the trailers and gameplay demos id seen previously looked fun. Nothing about the beta was fun. Overall it was a boring experience and I'll be making a hard pass when the game is released in March.
If you've played the beta and have any thoughts please leave them below in the comments. I'd love to hear your stories and experiences playing Ghost Recon games old and new.
