I want to love this game. I really do. It’s set in an incredibly detailed and beautiful world, it’s fun, and it’s a great shooter with a completely open world. It could be the perfect game. But…
Look at the above image. Notice how I’m in cover? I was in cover for a long damn time. It seemed like every time I stood up to shoot I got shot instead. So I stayed in cover until enough enemies were drawn out and killed that it was safe for me to move further in. All of this could have been remedied had Ubisoft bothered to caption your three teammates alerting you to an enemy’s location. Turns out they spot them and tell you where they are so you know where to not go.
Some dialogue is captioned. The story info you get from Karen Bowman and the idle chatter while running missions (including bad jokes which I will admit, made me laugh). But not all of it. You can read what your teammates say en-route to a mission but once you’re there, nope. Good luck to ya, you’re on your own! When I discovered that it pissed me off. I mean why bother to caption anything at all if you aren’t going to caption everything? Doesn’t it take more work to pick and choose what gets captions than to just caption everything? Would it have added another six months to the development of the game for them to type out the 20 or so different lines of your crew spotting enemies? And it’s not like this is a small time game. Ubisoft has the resources to know how to do this right. But they still choose not to. Even though there are fantastic resources on making your game accessible. How is it that small studios can (and want to) put so much work into game accessibility, but for the games we shell out $60 for, accessibility is half-assed? The deaf and hoh gaming community isn’t small. We’re also not invisible or not vocal about our constant disappointment. So what the hell?
Ok, on with the review. The visual assists are great. Mission markers are very clear and plentiful and color coded according to the type of mission it is.
Enemies are marked (once spotted) and also color coded according to their faction.
There’s a visual indicator (albeit very brief) when an enemy has spotted you, and the minimap changes color depending on whether you’re in the clear, being hunted, or currently engaged in fighting. Enemies also show up with a solid dot once you’ve spotted them and a larger general vicinity marker when you’re nearby (This is exactly where the teammate enemy spotting would be incredibly helpful. They tell you exactly where they are). Collectible resources glow and are clearly labeled on the minimap when you are close to them as well.
Ghost Recon Wildlands is a really fun game. The way the world around you reacts to you makes it feel very realistic and the bad jokes and chatter from your team makes it much more fun for me than The Division. You can go wherever you want, drive whatever you want, basically do whatever you want, in lovely and scenic Bolivia. Honestly, my only gripe is the bad captioning. That said, if you like shooters or Tom Clancy games, even with the caption problem, I have to say it’s a good buy. And I really hope Ubisoft will fix the captions with a patch.
Bottom Line
Ghost Recon Wildlands is a really fun game. The way the world around you reacts to you makes it feel very realistic and the bad jokes and chatter from your team makes it much more fun for me than The Division. You can go wherever you want, drive whatever you want, basically do whatever you want, in lovely and scenic Bolivia. Honestly, my only gripe is the bad captioning. That said, if you like shooters or Tom Clancy games, even with the caption problem, I have to say it’s a good buy. And I really hope Ubisoft will fix the captions with a patch.