Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands is a third-person tactical shooter video game developed by Ubisoft Paris and Ubisoft Milan, and published by Ubisoft. It was released worldwide on March 7, 2017, for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One as the tenth installment in the Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon franchise and is the first game in the Ghost Recon series to feature an open world environment.
The game moves away from the futuristic setting introduced in Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and instead features a setting similar to the original Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon. Ubisoft described it as one of the biggest open world games that they have published, with the game world including a wide variety of environments such as mountains, forests, deserts, and salt flats.
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands received generally mixed to positive reviews from critics. The game sold over 10 million units by March 2020. A sequel, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint, was released on October 4, 2019.
Gameplay
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands is a tactical cover based shooter game set in an open world environment and played from a third-person perspective with an optional first-person view for gun aiming. Players control members of the Delta Company, First Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group, also known as "Ghosts", an elite special operations unit of the United States Army under the Joint Special Operations Command. It does not feature the futuristic setting used in Advanced Warfighter and Future Soldier, and instead adopts a modern-day setting, similar to the original Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon. As a result, the equipment featured in the game is based on contemporary weapons and gear commonly used by military forces around the world. It features some original equipment, such as flying drones that can be used to tag enemies and show objectives. These drones have limited use beyond reconnaissance until upgraded, unlocking several abilities that can be used for tactical benefit.
The game is the first entry in the series to feature an open world environment. Set in contemporary Bolivia, the map consists of nine different types of terrain, such as mountains, jungles, forests, deserts, salt flats, and more. It also introduces a dynamic weather system as well as a day-night cycle. Completing missions during daytime allows players to spot enemies more easily, while completing missions at night offers better concealment and easier infiltration due to some guardsmen being asleep. Players are tasked with making observations and planning out their course of action before carrying out missions. A variety of vehicles, such as dirt bikes, helicopters and dune buggies, are featured in the game. Unlike its predecessors, Wildlands features several side-missions.
Players traverse the world through a variety of methods, including driving, flying, boating, and hiking, the most appealing option often depending on the current objective. Players use varying strategies and tactics to complete missions, including utilizing stealth to clear a base without alerting enemies or launching open attacks on targets. The game features outposts that can be taken down by players. Players can grab enemies at close range with one hand for defense as human shields, while using the other hand to shoot. Players can gain experience points to level up. The playable character can be customized, and loot found on enemies' corpses can be equipped by player characters. Weapons and gear can be upgraded as well. According to the creative director of the game, the AI of the game is unscripted and has their "own motivations and agendas".
Each of the 21 provinces on the map is controlled by a buchon, who is associated with one of four divisions of the cartel's operations: Influence, Security, Production and Smuggling. Clearing missions in an area and collecting key intel unlocks missions where players can target a buchon and eliminate them by killing or capturing the target (with some exceptions). Eliminating enough buchones in an operations division allows players to target that division's underboss, and eliminating that underboss and all of the buchones in an operations division leaves the division head vulnerable. Capturing this division head cripples and destabilizes the division and makes the cartel boss more vulnerable.Ghost Recon: Wildlands Tips & Guide Red Bull It features cooperative multiplayer mode, in which players can be joined by up to three other players to explore the game's world and to complete campaign missions. The game can be played solo, in which the player will be accompanied by three AI teammates, which the player can give orders to, if a player wants a more "lone wolf" playstyle they can be disabled via the settings. A competitive multiplayer mode has been released as part of a free update on October 10, 2017. It features an elimination type of game mode in a timed 4v4 match with revives. Players can level up through multiplayer gameplay which enables them to improve the different class of characters available.
Plot Setting The game takes place in Bolivia in July 2019. The country has become increasingly unstable as a Mexican drug cartel known as the Santa Blanca Cartel gains control of several regions throughout the country. Led by the brutal and religious cartel boss El Sueño, the cartel gains more power and influence within and outside the country, turning Bolivia into the world's largest producer of cocaine. In an attempt to fight off Santa Blanca's armed occupation in their country, the Bolivian government establishes La Unidad, an elite special forces group tasked with fighting the Cartel. Both factions eventually establish a truce to prevent more bloodshed after months of brutal fighting, with some of Unidad's personnel secretly working for Santa Blanca. DEA Agent Ricardo "Ricky" Sandoval is sent undercover in Santa Blanca in a joint operation with the CIA to gather intelligence on the Cartel, eventually working for El Sueño himself. The United States is compelled to act when a bomb targets the American embassy in La Paz and Sandoval is executed by the cartel after his cover is blown, deploying a Ghost Recon fireteam consisting of team leader and support gunner Nomad, vehicle and assault specialist Midas, hacker and tactical engineer Holt, and their sniper Weaver.
Campaign Nomad's fireteam is deployed to Bolivia as part of Operation Kingslayer, a joint operation between the CIA, DEA, and JSOC. The Ghosts enter Bolivia with their CIA contact, Karen Bowman, who was also a close friend to Sandoval. They meet Pac Katari, leader of the Kataris 26, the only resistance against Santa Blanca. Katari requests they rescue Amaru, whose ideologies inspired the Kataris 26, from Santa Blanca. The Ghosts, with support from Bowman and the Kataris 26s, are free to tackle the cartel in any way they see fit.
The Ghosts dismantle the cartel piece by piece, targeting their four main operations by attacking drugs production facilities and stockpiles, disrupting smuggling operations, discrediting the cartel in the eyes of corrupt politicians and supporters, and inciting conflict between the cartel's senior figures. The team manage to capture or kill El Sueño's top lieutenants and their key subordinates to further weaken the cartel's grip over the region. After eliminating one of the four main operations of Santa Blanca, El Sueño personally contacts the team and lures them to a meeting to meet face to face. The Ghosts hesitantly agree, but do not find El Sueño at the agreed location. El Sueño instead calls them via phone to bribe the Ghosts into working for him, though they refuse his offer and instead threaten him.
While dismantling the cartel, the team finds and collects audio tapes of agent Sandoval's reports to Bowman of his time working undercover for El Sueño. Sandoval's reports reveal that he had become deeply troubled by his mission, not only by the crimes he had committed to keep his cover but also by his superiors' reluctance to take action against the cartel. After recovering Sandoval's body from the cartel, Sueno contacts them again to offer them a tape of Sandoval's confession. Upon listening to it, they are disturbed to learn that Sandoval was responsible for the embassy bombing and framed Santa Blanca so that the United States government would be forced to intervene in Bolivia. Though Bowman and the team are angered by Sandoval's deception, they decide to continue with the mission as the cartel still poses a threat.
After dismantling half of the cartel, Katari claims his men have located El Sueño, but the Ghosts grow suspicious when they instead find the body of Amaru. Unable to contact Bowman, they find her captured by the Kataris 26 and Katari breaks their alliance, claiming that the rebels must kill El Sueño themselves to avoid being seen as puppets of the United States. The Ghosts rescue Bowman and race to El Sueño's mausoleum to capture him before Katari kills him. After fighting their way through both rebel and cartel opposition, the Ghosts and Bowman surround El Sueño, who has beheaded Katari. Despite his surrendering, Bowman receives a call from her superiors, which reveals that El Sueño has made a deal with the Department of Justice to give up the heads of other drug cartels in exchange for immunity and witness protection.
How the story ends depends on whether the Ghosts fully dismantled the cartel. If remnants of the cartel remain, Bowman will execute El Sueño, leading to her dismissal from the CIA and her arrest for murdering El Sueño. She expresses no regrets in doing so, fearing that El Sueño would have become a dictator with the United States' backing. The canon ending occurs when the Ghosts have fully dismantled the cartel, Bowman takes El Sueño into protective custody. El Sueño provides further intelligence on other drug cartels, terrorist groups, and arms smugglers. Bowman predicts that when the intelligence runs out, El Sueño will either be extradited by Mexico or cut loose and start a new drug cartel, starting the cycle over again. She and the Ghosts resolve to prepare themselves for the next fight.
Post-launch content Narco Road An unnamed Ghost is sent undercover into Bolivia by the CIA to identify "El Invisible", the elusive head of Santa Blanca's smuggling network. The Ghost poses as a mercenary for hire and befriends the leaders of the gangs carrying out smuggling operations. Assisting the Ghost is CIA handler Karen Bowman and a local fisherman using the alias Señor Sonrisa, who is a CIA informant. Each gang leader provides clues to El Invisible's identity before the Ghost assassinates them. Eventually, the Ghost's notoriety grows to the point where El Invisible recruits them into Santa Blanca, erasing the Ghost's identity and staging their death. However, El Invisible is aware of the Ghost's true identity and has them imprisoned. The Ghost escapes and with the help from Señor Sonrisa, recovers the handheld device El Invisible uses to run Santa Blanca's smuggling network anonymously and seemingly kills El Invisible. When the device is decrypted, it unleashes a virus that compromises the CIA. The Ghost deduces that Señor Sonrisa is actually El Invisible, and that he orchestrated the operation to escape Santa Blanca, attack the CIA and disappear for good. Unable to explain Señor Sonrisa's motive for attacking them, the CIA spend the next two years tracking him. He is eventually found in Arizona and the Ghost is assigned a mission to kill him. The Ghost makes their way to Señor Sonrisa's fishing cabin and assassinates him.
Fallen Ghosts