14 Ghost Recon: Wildlands Tips To Help You Wage War Against The Cartel

Ghost Recon: Wildlands just hit stores today. It's a big game, so we need more time with it before our review is ready to go live.  However, if you've already touched down in Bolivia and are ready to take on the cartel with your friends or by yourself, here are some tips to help you get started.

Play With Friends If You Can
Seriously. Or at least play with other players in public sessions. The team A.I. is serviceable and they'll do a decent job of helping you raid camps and execute enemies, but it's also more boring to play with them, and they're not the best at helping you get out of tough situations when your plan falls to pieces. 

Always Be On The Lookout For Upgrades And Resources
Weapon upgrades, accessories, and skill tree points are littered around the map. They can often be tagged by your drones or seen with your own eyes if you're close enough, so don't settle for just getting the objective done. Look around. Take your time in camps. Caches often hold valuable upgrades for both your character and weapons.

Upgrade And Use Your Drones

You have drones capable of scouting enemy camps. Use them. Intelligence and careful planning is often what keeps your mission from falling apart, and your drones are essential in building that information since they can fly around camps and tag enemies, intel, and valuable resources. Just don't get right up in an enemy soldier's face with them or they'll ring the alarm. Upgrades in the skill tree also make your drone more useful, letting you turn it into an explosive trap or granting it night vision, so invest in that tree generously. 

Use Your Squad's Assault Function While Driving
If you're playing with A.I. teammates, one of the more helpful options in the game is to put them in assault mode while you're driving with them in the passenger seats. Clicking up on the d-pad makes them go from passively sitting in their seats to leaning out of cars, weapons in hand, ready to shoot at any enemy nearby. This is invaluable doing convoy missions where you have to take down a moving truck and tag it.

Watch Your Fire

If you kill enough civilians, it'll cause you to fail your mission. Seeing as a number of your firefights take place in villages and populated areas, it is incredibly easy to take down non-combatants by accident. In these cases, it's better to opt for precise shots rather than spray-and-pray with an assault rifle.

Helicopter Traversal Is Your Best Friend
Bolivia is a big place. Sometimes you've got miles standing between you and your next objective. Helicopters make these trips go by quickly. Try to unlock a fast travel point next to a helicopter so you can always just warp there and then fly to your destination.

Take Time To Learn The Control Scheme
This might sound like a no-brainer, but Wildlands' control layout takes some getting used to, especially when it comes to switching between the three weapons you have on you and managing your camera. Look at the controller layout in the menu. Spend five minutes exploring what you can do once you start the game proper. It'll save you a fair bit of grief in the long run.

You Can Warp To Your Teammates On The Map
Sometimes you'll spawn in the game and be miles away from your squadmates. Luckily, you can open up the map and warp to any teammate by hovering over their icon. Be warned that if they're on the move in a vehicle, you spawn at their current location, so you need to let them know you're coming in otherwise they'll be another mile away by the time you phase in.

Neutralize Alarms From Afar
Alarms are probably the worst enemy in the game, alerting your presence to to all enemies on the base as well as enemies far away. Luckily, you can take them out from afar with a sniper rifle. Zoom in. When you see a flashing little square, that's the box you have to take out. Do it. It'll make your life so much easier. 

You Can Switch Between First-Person And Third-Person Aim

Wildlands automatically makes you go into first-person view when you aim but you can click out of it and do a classic third-person perspective by clicking the right analog stick. It doesn't provide a major tactical advantage, but is helpful to know especially for those who prefer to shoot from the third-person perspective.

Explore To Unlock New Story Missions

Wildlands is not great about telling you how to progress. Once you beat the first series of story missions, there are no indicators that tell you where to go or what to do in order to unlock the next series of missions. Instead, what you have to do is set out and explore more of the map, which looks like it's inaccessible, but it's not. Once you enter a new region, your handler will call you and inform you about your new target.

Invest In The Stabilize Aim Skill
Precise shots are often the difference between silently completing your objective without being noticed and having to take on an entire army. The less shaky your aim, the easier it will be for you to stealth your way through missions.

Upgrade Sync Shot If You're Going To Be Playing Solo
Having as many sync shots available to you as possible will help make missions much easier, especially if you're trying to lone wolf the whole campaign. 

Try Not To Make The UNIDAD Mad
In Wildlands, you'll often be taking on either the Cartel or the UNIDAD. You can slaughter as many Cartel foes as you want, and they'll occasionally send reinforcements. The UNIDAD, however, basically function as Wildlands' answer to Grand Theft Auto's Wanted level system. They are armored law enforcement that use helicopters and minigun equipped vehicles to run you down. They're mean and they hit hard, and there's really no use in fighting them since they never stop coming until you get far enough away from them.

The best tactic when you have to sneak into a UNIDAD camp to interrogate someone or steal some intel is to not ruffle any feathers. Knock out soldiers you come across or take them out silently. If you do raise their ire, complete the objective as quickly as possible and get the hell out of there.