A lot of detractors out there have complained about generic missions and they lack of a strong story, but they are missing the point. Ghost Recon Wildlands is a sandbox game that gives players full freedom to play the world as they see fit. The overall story is not important because it’s just a loose framework to host the freeform emergent gameplay. The ‘motive’ for your actions is not where the fun lies, it’s the way you actually perform the actions.

In a sandbox open world game, it’s the gamer that creates the action and epic moments, not some pre-scripted linear experience created by a game designer. Do nothing and nothing happens. What Ubisoft have created here is truly epic. The map is huge and diverse, packed to the brim with very detailed cool locations to have your battles.

And the map cleverly keeps on giving, because just when you thought you had cleared all the bases in an area, you find some intel unlocking a load of goodies scattered around the map. Those items are very valuable and are often in bases you have already played so you get to play them again in a different way because each battle is random.

There are literally hundreds of individually designed settlements and bases, so you cannot remember them all, even when returning to capture an unlocked item. Not only can you use different strategies to alter the way things play out, the AI are randomly moving like loose cannons, so they are not in the same position each time. That’s a real bonus for creative gamers who like the freedom to play things as they see it. The reward is genuine because it was you that made it happen, not some designer.

As you progress in the game you start to unlock and use new strategies. The sync shot feature is amazing when playing the game solo with the 3 AI. It’s much easier to keep[ control of a battle than when playing with coop buddies who always end up running around like loose cannons breaking the stealth.

But as your skills progress, you learn that you can actually direct the sync shot battles from the flying drone. When you do that, the game plays totally different because you don’t even have to fire a shot. You just tag enemy from above and wait for you team to confirm they are in place, then order the shot when there are no witnesses to the kill. When you mix that technique with normal stealth sync shots wit you shooting and guns load scenarios, the game has a huge depth of possibilities to tap into that are great fun.