Ghost Recon: Wildlands - 10 Things We Learned From The Beta

9. The AI Isn't As Clever As We'd Hoped

Now, before I begin, I totally get that betas aren't nor ever will be representative of a final product. Stuff can change quite literally at the flick of a switch, and though it may not seem it, March 7th is still a month away - there'll be plenty of time for Ubi to iron out the kinks until then.

With that out of the way, it does look as though Ghost Recon has an AI problem, both in terms of your teammates, and the cartel you encounter. Your fellow Ghosts have to be babysat pretty much all of the time, and offer little tactical clout in a given situation unless you're performing a very ungracious drive-by on an unsuspecting convoy. This is most evident in close-quarters combat, where fellow operatives seem to make it their mission to stray into your line of sight repeatedly, grappling cover that offers little in the way of protection from on-coming threats. They're also prone to detection, turning successful infiltrations into needless confrontations and in-turn smashing what little nuance is left of the title's stealth system. They're meant to be Tier-1 operatives, but they come out of the game looking like wannabe Air-Soft enthusiasts running on an inconsolable diet of Mountain Dew and Doritos. Not the impression I guess the title is going for, right?

Then there's the enemy, split between the ill-trained Sicarios of the Santa Blanca and the PMC Unidad, the only difference between them being that the latter take a few more shots to the chest than their stereotypical cartel counterparts. I genuinely struggled to come across a firefight where I felt challenged by what Wildlands had to offer, which, to me at least, signals a glaring problem. After all, the title banks on its ability to convey guerrilla warfare authentically, pitting four soldiers against a gigantic force and persevering only through intelligence and teamwork. If it can't even deliver upon this fundamental theme, then there's a stark danger that it will fail, and fast.