When Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands was first unveiled at Ubisoft's E3 2015 press conference, it initiated a guessing game among GameSpot staff members. Ubisoft's open-world action formula has become easily identifiable: many of the animations, many of the trailers' techniques and camera angles, many of the gameplay hooks are shared between Ubisoft series, so when the first glimpses of Wildlands arrived, the challenge was set. There is a large and attractive open world here, along with both stealth- and action-focused gunplay. Could this be

What grabbed me wasn't Ubisoft's promise that Ghost Recon; Wildlands was the largest open world the company had ever created, but rather that the missions populating this world opened up so many opportunities for military role-playing. Far Cry supports stealth, of course, but these four-person tactics are incredibly appealing to anyone who's ever fancied themselves special operatives in a political hotspot. Ubisoft's presenters refer to WIldlands as a playground, but what struck me about the game wasn't its playfulness, but its solemn earnestness. If Far Cry 4 is aimed primarily at cooperative comedians, then Ghost Recon: Wildlands is for straight-faced allies ready to believe in their cause.