Some of the writers and I teamed up to take down some mean-mugging drug cartels in the Ghost Recon Wildlands closed beta this past weekend. We even streamed for hours on our Twitch channel, we just really couldn’t get enough of Ubisoft’s open-world shooter. The game, even in beta stage, was incredibly expansive, the character customization was glorious, and the story-line captured – and kept – our interest. And come on – any time you can equip a pink “his and hers” AK-47, you know you’re going to have a good time.

First, a little background on Ubisoft’s latest title. The game itself is set in Bolivia and can easily be played as a solo game or up to 4 person co-op. Your role as an elite U.S operative is to take on an off-the-books mission against a grisly drug cartel. And I do mean grisly – throughout the mission you can see bodies torn apart limb from limb, broken corpses, and dead men hanging from all over the landscape. This big cartel operation needs to go down, and you and your team are the ones entrusted to do it. With some help from the rebels, of course.

The co-op was not unexpected, but definitely appreciated. Riding around in stolen vehicles with three of your closest buds? It’s a good time. Pair that with the exquisite character customization and you’ve got yourself a fully immersive gaming experience with your friends.

Though the game itself can definitely be played solo, with the mechanics and mission style – I personally recommend co-op. The quest line really tailors itself to a team dynamic, making a run of the main story much more enjoyable when tactical planning can be divvied up among friends. There is, of course, matchmaking if your friends don’t play or if they play on another platform. You don’t have to go it alone unless you really want to.

First things first – the character customization. Wildlands is by far not the only shooter to offer this feature but I will admit that I was impressed right off the bat with all of the different character options, both male and female. The diversity of the presets plus the individual customization made it really easy to tailor my character to me. It made me miss being active-duty and blond, and that’s really saying something. From scars, to tattoos, to different hair colours – tactical styling was way more fun than it should be. Between myself and the rest of my team, we were some badass looking operatives.

One thing all four of us could agree on was this immediately this game had a Far Cry feel to it. The map orientation was huge and explorable – the open-world opportunities definitely had a Far Cry 4 vibe and for me personally, I was more than OK with that. The enviromentals, the terrains, the different areas to explore – it was a breath of fresh air and that was only in Beta. Looking at the map completely zoomed out made my inner operative all tingly inside.

Definitely a story that drives you want to go in for the kill with total enemy base pwnage. Again – totally fine with that.”

There are many side quests to take on through your journey into Bolivia. You can scout out enemy bases, you can recruit rebels to your cause, rain down the pain with mortar strikes – there are so many little features to this game that compile into a really enjoyable experience. And the little mini drones? Come on, who doesn’t want a mini drone – those are always fun.

Though at times it can seem like it’s just wave after wave of total destruction and chaos, once you delve into the inner workings of the cartel – that chaos starts feeling a little more justified. As mentioned earlier and in the picture above with the hanging man, there are a lot of brutal acts witnessed in-game. And one, uh – very bloody condom. It’s … interesting? Definitely a story that drives you to want to go in for the kill with total enemy base pwnage. Again – totally fine with that.

The weapons load out and upgrade system was decent and absolutely set up for “you play, you get”. You can scour bases, empty buildings, and abandoned terrains for skill points and different components to give you the edge needed to take on the enemy. There was so much to explore, trying to get all of the skill points we could while in beta alone was a mountainous task.

The map was huge and it was just the one – being in beta stage means we only got a tiny, minuscule glimpse of all of the areas to explore when Wildlands goes live. There were so many hilarious cliff crashes with stolen vehicles and don’t even get me started on when Hoi or myself got into the pilot’s seat of a stolen helicopter. Good times. Good, fiery times.

One thing that did stick out to me as a concern was the overall pace for the game. Getting on a solid roll for story progression is hard to do in most FPS games but with Wildlands, because of the sheer expansiveness of it and the overwhelming number of “extras”, it halted the progress of the story in a very start-stop way that definitely played in an inconsistent manner. You need the skill points to level up, to upgrade, and to unlock special skills so I did, and do, worry a bit about the urge to max out overriding the team’s ability to set a natural pace. Don’t get me wrong, it was a blast playing the beta – but good pacing, especially for large-scale games, is incredibly important.

The stealth aspect in the game was also enjoyable – but not for me. And that’s OK! The way the missions are set up, Wildlands gives the player’s play-style their time to shine. In RPGs, I always tank – always. I’m definitely a run and gun type of girl – the Assassin Creed franchise and I have a very love-hate relationship. Now take that and flip it for Chewy – he’s very into strategic stealth mode and patience. Not this gal – but the missions were often large enough that we could both get our rocks off without sacrificing our individual play style. That kind of diversive playability was definitely appreciated – even if Chewy did want to sacrifice me to the enemy team a few times.

Bottom line though is that Wildlands was fantastic, expansive, and immersive – and that’s just in Beta. Other than pacing concern, I really can’t come up with any negative to say about it. Ubisoft spent a lot of time on this title and it shows.  You can check out 25 minutes of our gameplay in the video above or our entire 3 hours of shenanigans right here on our Twitch channel.

Ghost Recon Wildlands is set for release on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 March 7th, 2017. Will you be picking up your copy? Sound off with your thoughts below and tell us what you think of the Wildlands closed beta and what your predictions are for the future of the game!