Ghost Recon: Future Warrior Review

The newest full entry in the acclaimed Ghost Recon tactical shooter franchise, Ghost Recon Future Soldier was developed by Ubisoft and released in May 2012. Originally planned for release as a console exclusive, Future Soldier experienced a relatively turbulent development cycle, with the game's release date having been pushed back by Ubisoft at least 3 times between 2009 and 2012, and the PC version going from "coming out" to "cancelled because of piracy" to "coming out alongside the console versions". Nevertheless, Future Soldier did see a release, albeit unfortunately saddled with a shoddy porting job and an obnoxious system of DRM, courtesy of good old Ubisoft.

As stated earlier, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Future Soldier is a console port. An Ubisoft one no less, so expectations are understandingly lowered upon going into this game as a PC player, as Ubisoft are infamous for their lazy, bug-ridden porting jobs and their overall negative and condescending attitudes in recent times towards PC gaming in general.

That being said, let's dive in. Future Soldier is actually a surprisingly good shooter in many aspects; a rarity among modern video games, and the modern shooter genre in particular. Future Soldier is also, however, an unsurprisingly bad console port. Despite being expected by potentially very many players to be so, Future Soldier's crude porting is a legitimate issue, and must be addressed as such. Remember, just because something negative is expected or "the norm" does not mean that it stops being a negative aspect or that it should be accepted.

Ghost Recon Future Soldier differs a good deal from the rest of the Ghost Recon series in two primary elements. Firstly, the aforementioned console-oriented development and design of this game. Secondly, the fact that Future Soldier plays primarily from a third-person perspective, with some mechanics that assume a first-person perspective. This transition is a bit jarring coming from earlier Ghost Recon games. The change isn't necessarily a bad one however. A camera angle is only a camera angle; it's up to the director to make the best use of it possible, and Future Soldier does a pretty good job with making the best out of its third-person perspective, all things considered.

The majority of third-person shooters I play leave me with a distinct lack of awe, and more often than not a feeling that the game would have been better had it been from a first-person perspective, with the given game's third-person camera seeming to be more of a gimmick put in place to make the game seem more "distinct" from the sea of similarly-feeling, similarly-playing first-person shooters released so often in the modern gaming industry, rather than as a well thought out game design decision. Not so in Future Soldier. The third-person camera does not undermine or damage the player's ability to acquire targets in firefights, and the player is given the choice to change to a first-person perspective at any time while aiming, in order to gain more powerful zoom. In fact, the game's third-person camera often helps in acquiring targets from the safety of cover. My only problem with the camera system is the fact that the game has a very unimpressive default field of view (to better optimize the game for consoles), with no built-in option to change it.

Speaking of cover, Future Soldier happens to feature a cover system. Now I know what you're thinking: "Ugh." Well, upon further inspection, it's actually not that bad. The gameplay doesn't revolve around being in cover or making use of the cover system. It's entirely possible to use only manual cover as in most traditional shooters, and Future Soldier even allows the player to assume a prone position, so use of the cover system is not a requirement by any means. Using the cover system is often not recommended, as the player is not immune from all gunfire in a 180 degree field in front of them while behind cover like in games such as Gears of War or Mass Effect, so players behind a specific piece of cover will often be surprised when they find that they just got killed by an enemy they didn't notice beforehand. And the player dies very easily when compared to how fast the game is otherwise, so smart choice of shelter is paramount while playing.

Hiding properly is important when playing Future Soldier, not just to avoid gunfire during combat, but also because of the game's stealth mechanics. The game's protagonists belong to a special forces group who's purpose is reconnaissance and other similarly classified operations, rather than direct combat. Staying consistent with the series, players in Future Soldier are usually influenced to avoid direct confrontations, as skillful use of the game's stealth mechanics gives the player a significant advantage. To help the Ghosts with their infiltration, the player's squad is given several futuristic gadgets during gameplay. Included is an invisibility stealth field that activates when the player is crawling (the primary method of remaining undetected), several vision modes that allow the player to locate enemies through walls and other vision blockers, and the use of remotely-controlled robots and drones. The purpose of the stealth is to use it to kill enemies easily and silently rather than avoiding them entirely, and every tool is geared towards that role somehow. There's also the "sync shot" mechanic, where the player marks a number of (up to 4) targets for him and their squad to eliminate simultaneously. On top of being cool as hell to see in action, this mechanic is also somewhat central to the game's stealth, and learning how and when to use it is crucial to using stealth successfully.

The game's single player campaign is arranged in a fairly linear way, with there being a briefing before the beginning of every mission. During that briefing, the player is given the opportunity to customize their equipment loadout for their mission. Future Soldier features a deep weapon customization system, where players can choose from a large number of firearms and swap out numerous parts on them, gearing or optimizing them for different roles. This gives players some flexibility as to how they play the game at some parts, although the game's level design is static and quite linear, so you're still encouraged to bring specific types of guns to certain missions.

Otherwise, the single-player campaign is relatively generic and there isn't much story or characterization to speak of, but it nonetheless makes good use of the game's established mechanics, and provides enough content and challenges to give players a decent experience, and still have a degree of replayability. My favorite part of the campaign (and of Future Soldier in general) is that absolutely every single one of the single-player missions ends in some sort of climactic, semi-cinematic, "Black Hawk Down" set piece where the player and their squad need to hold out against waves of enemies while waiting for extraction or something similar to arrive. While I don't usually enjoy scripted set pieces very much, given their prevalence in modern games which otherwise lack substance, in Future Warrior they feel very nice to play through, and are more parts gameplay than cutscene. All these scenes are very well done, and unlike in similar AAA shooters, do not take control away from the player at any point, making them both awesome to look at from a cinematic perspective, and engaging from a gameplay perspective. The best is probably the mission where the player is single-handedly sent into a Siberian prison camp via a HALO jump from SPACE to rescue the Russian president in a stealth operation reminiscent of Metal Gear Solid, which ends in a frantic firefight as the player mows down waves of advancing enemies while defending the president.

Don't believe me?
https://youtu.be/wR0E8M9zVkQ?t=521
It's legit.

Overall, while not being "best shooter ever" by any means, Future Soldier is regardless a very decent modern shooting experience, and easily worth dropping a few bucks on if you enjoy fast-paced, semi-tactical shooters. Beware though, the awful optimization is no joke. This game blue-screened my computer at least 5 times just from alt-tabbing, so exercise some caution when playing, and look for a way to play it windowed instead of full-screen, as that seems to be the cause of quite a few problems in ported games like these.