History YMMV / GhostReconWildlands

* CompleteMonster:
** [[BigBad El Sueño]] is the leader of [[TheCartel the Santa Blanca Cartel]] and responsible for turning the once-prosperous UsefulNotes/{{Bolivia}} into a narco-state. Within the cartel El Sueño personally oversees and partakes in the production and distribution of cocaine, the trafficking of children, and the torture and murder of thousands; there are numerous corpses hanging from telephone poles and mass graves found throughout Bolivia. When El Sueño learns that one of his men is an undercover DEA agent, he personally tortures the man for 47 hours straight. His acts of cruelty also extend to even the most loyal of his subordinates; [[YouHaveFailedMe should they fail him in any way]], he would arrange for them to either be tortured, murdered, their loved ones kidnapped and murdered, or all the above. When the Ghosts manage to dismantle his cartel, [[spoiler: El Sueño reveals that he made a deal with their government granting him immunity while he would use them to take down rival cartels and gloats about his victory by throwing at them a recently decapitated head of rebel leader and former ally, Pac Katari.]] With nearly every atrocity committed by the Santa Blanca Cartel being traced back to El Sueño, underneath his [[FauxAffablyEvil religious and charitable exterior]] lies a [[LargeAndInCharge towering]] and brutal egotist, utterly unfeeling to the violence caused by his actions.
** ''Fallen Ghosts'' [[DownloadableContent DLC]]: [[PrivateMilitaryContractors Los Extranjeros]] took over Bolivia after the collapse of the Santa Blanca Cartel and prove themselves to be amongst the [[PsychoForHire most monstrous enemies]] the Ghosts have ever faced. While its leader [[BigBad Colonel Juan Ignacio Merlo]] is absent throughout most of the DLC, his [[CoDragons three lieutenants]] in particular really stand out:
*** [[ColdSniper Major Luis Rocha]], "El Espectro" ("The Specter"), runs the Western Precinct in Bolivia where he subjects the populace in that area to [[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil slave labor]] to rebuild cocaine production. Rocha would kidnap these people's loved ones to force them to work themselves to death, while also [[BadBoss killing some of his own workers]] and [[DeadGuyOnDisplay nailing their corpses in the fields]] as "extra motivation". When one village didn't meet Rocha's expectations, he orders his soldiers to lure the villagers into one building for them to slaughter.
*** [[AxCrazy Captain Dante Cruzar]], "El Diablo" ("The Devil"), runs the Northern Precinct of Bolivia where he carries out killing sprees on the Christian population, killing hundreds of innocent people and stacking their corpses onto a massive pile, with some of his victims being [[ManOnFire burned alive]]. When the Ghosts try to dismantle his hold on the Northern Precinct, Cruzar responds by initiating a massacre at a village, killing all the villagers there, while [[HollywoodAtheist mocking their belief in God's protection]].
*** [[BloodKnight Captain Tomas Ortega]], "El Oso" ("The Bear"), runs the Eastern Precinct of Bolivia where he establishes an arena there where he has the populace there [[GladiatorGames fight each other to the death]] for his amusement. Ortega would also kidnap innocent civilians and use them as target practice for his fighters to kill, and would even kill his [[BadBoss own soldiers]] if they don't meet his standards as warriors. When the Ghosts arrive in his Precinct, Ortega lures them to his arena where he uses his prisoners as [[CannonFodder disposable fodder]] against the Ghosts before trying to kill them himself.

** Jammers will (mostly) disable your drone and force you to rely on binoculars to track down enemies, at least until you unlock the Spotting skill. They're usually located deep in the enemy base and while possible to disable with gunfire, mortar strikes or explosives this will inevitably put the entire enemy base on high alert. Bases on higher difficulty provinces usually have one, a few ones can have two just as an extra screw you to the player(s).

** Jammers will (mostly) disable your drone and force you to rely on binoculars to track down enemies, at least until you unlock the Spotting skill. Even then Jammers are usually right in the middle of the base and disabling with gunfire will almost certainly alert the entire enemy base.

* ScrappyMechanic: For reasons unknown, the game is sloppily done in many areas, especially compared to The Division, and desperately needs patching for many broken/unfinished mechanics.
** Ammunition limits for some baffling reason are wildly incorrect across all weapon types. Sniper rifles max out at 84 rounds, which doesn't divide equally if the player is carrying a weapon that has a 20 or 30 round magazine. Assault rifles max out at 335 rounds, which doesn't divide equally among any of the magazine capacities, leading to the player having rounds left over. Most egregious is the pistol ammo limit, which maxes out at 225; this means the player is somehow carrying ''30'' magazines of pistol ammunition. Despite the obvious errors, this has still not been patched.
** The helicopter and plane controls used to be unacceptably bad; helicopters do not respond to pitch commands, often pitching in the ''opposite'' direction, are slow to move and have plane-like physics. Helicopters with forward mounted weapons are useless due to their reluctance to pitch down and the lack of an aiming reticule makes aiming a frustration. The lack of rotation controls means there is no way to yaw the helicopter left or right for precision landings. Planes also lack yaw controls, which can lead to botched landings. This was thankfully patched.
** Weapon customization is interesting but is full of holes/inconsistencies. Weapons that should be able to equip attachments cannot (like the 6P41 having a railed fore-end but strangely being unable to accept foregrips), some weapons having incorrectly modeled attachments (the AUG A3's gigantic 30-round magazine and the [=M4A1=]'s oversized stock are notable examples).
** Vehicle physics are very poorly done; most land vehicles are floaty and frustratingly difficult to control, with even heavy vehicles having no weight to them and motorcycles are not even modeled with proper crash mechanics, meaning a crash more than likely ends with the player soaring through the air and going into "downed" state.
** When you discover a supply crate containing a new weapon or accessory, it is not automatically added to the arsenals of your teammates when looted. As a result, you'll often see all 4 players on a team standing in line at the crate when one is discovered.
** Supplies in co-op mode have to be individually tagged by each team member, resulting in the scenes above being repeated with the various supply containers found throughout the game world.
*** This at least has since been patched to one tag per resource for the whole team.
** The fact that generic enemies can randomly surrender to the Ghosts adds a nice touch of realism and atmosphere to the game - in theory. What usually happens in practice is that you shoot someone dead and get a "surrendered enemy killed" message plastered across your screen, followed by a WhatTheHellHero line by a team member and a mission failure in case you already did it one or two times in the same mission. Enemies tend to surrender when all veterans in the area are dead and they witness several of their buddies being killed in short order, but combat in this game is simply too fast-paced for the average player to even notice in time that one or more of the bad guys in their crosshairs had a change of heart, so all this mechanic does is add another method to very suddenly fail a mission.
** The supply convoy raids. Sure, they're fun the first two or three times you attack one, but they become boring very quickly once you've figured out a good tactic (and there are quite a few of them). They're not mandatory, thankfully, but if you want to unlock all skills, you're practically forced to grind dozens of convoys to acquire the necessary resources. If you're playing Tier One mode and want to upgrade your weapons, even more so.
** Unidad helicopters and patrols tend to wear out their welcome fast. Doubly so helicopters. Unidad is a roaming hostile faction that's hostile to both the player and the cartels, but they'll mostly focus their efforts on the player. Because they can spot you while roaming it can ruin stealth if you happen to be by a road when a patrol passes by, and there are also Unidad helicopter patrols that can, for [[FakeDifficulty no given reason]], circle the area where you are, clearly looking for you even if it has 0 reason in universe to suspect you're anywhere in the area and ruin a stealth run by spotting you from the air. They can do this randomly and it can easily ruin any event that has mandatory stealth, such as stealing a helicopter full of supplies or any of the daily challenges.
** Random cartel lieutenant spawns are supposed to help you gather in intel for supply raids and unlockables. Unfortunately, even if you have those unlocked/visible, they still spawn. What's worse that they spot you very quickly, and will usually ruin a stealth run for missions and daily challenges. Their spotting, in some cases can alert the enemy of either side!
** If a mission requires you to be stealthy and for some reason the player decides to shoot their guns (like at alarms and Generators) while there are rebels nearby, the rebels can [[UnwantedAssistance aggro the enemy]] and fail the stealth segment. More painful if the mission requires you to not kill any enemies.
** The daily challenges requires the player to be on the extreme difficulty to complete its objectives with certain restrictions. Also, failing said conditions requires the player to redeploy to a certain checkpoint, forcing a restart in some cases.
*** Weapon restrictions: While they can be circumvented with the AI teammates and the rebels, the player CANNOT kill anyone else EXCEPT using the weapon type required. The restriction also includes melee kills and vehicle kills, enemy or not. Hit a rock and spun out near a civillian and run him over? Too bad, the challenge failed.
*** Stealth required missions are a pain when the drone CANNOT be used due to jammers. The player can also be spotted by the random lieutenant and Unidad patrol spawns, failing the required stealth. Being hunted, however, doesn't fail the segment.
*** No damage runs requires [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the player to not receive any damage]]. If the target is a roaming target, or that you cannot stealth the mission (Like if the mission begins with the hunted phase on), it becomes a nightmare to avoid being detected and being shot, especially since it's on extreme difficulty where the AI has perfect accuracy.
*** Task force challenges can sometimes require you to play with other players. Don't have other player to play? Too bad. These missions often require the players to grab and kill three specific buchons in one area or in quick succession- and even to other buchons that killing them causes a mission fail in the first place!
** Bullet travel time and drop. Realistic? Yes. Annoying? Very much. You have to compensate for the distance and bullet drop when sniping at long ranges or against moving targets and because of it it's a nightmare to deal with helicopters or any target very far since it's usually hard to see where the fired bullet went so you can adjust your aim accordingly.
** Strangely, the recon drone and the Spotting skill can become this in missions that require you to identify and tail a target without being seen. The moment you spot the target - who's usually surrounded by a platoon of enemies - their grab-a-vehicle-and-drive-to-the-destination script kicks in, and if that happens while enemies are close to you, you won't be able to get a to vehicle yourself in time without getting spotted. On the other hand, once/if you know all of this already, the situation is turned around completely because you can just park a vehicle in a good spot, track down the target from afar and follow them without any hassle.

** Guards in buildings, watchtowers and gatehouses. They're prone to make players fuck up and miss shots which will alert the entire base and get the Hunted status up and it doesn't help that they usually stand in spots where you can't take them out easily from certain angles forcing you to relocate or use up your Sync Shot. They're even frustrating to pinpoint with the drone or binoculars since sometimes they like to stay ''just'' out of their visual detection range and force you to move the drone around or relocate yourself until you find the prick who's unwittingly hiding from you.

** In-universe there's DJ Perico, to many people he's an insufferably annoying loudmouth, to some Rebels he's actually funny, and ''El Sueño'' himself finds him amusing and useful as Santa Blanca's mouthpiece and for propaganda spreading.

** Guards in watchtowers and gatehouses. They're prone to make players fuck up and miss shots which will alert the entire base and get the Hunted status up and it doesn't help that they usually stand in spots where you can't take them out easily from certain angles forcing you to relocate or use up your Sync Shot. They're even annoying to pinpoint with the drone or binoculars since sometimes they like to stay ''just'' out of their visual detection range.

** Guards in watchtowers and gatehouses. They're prone to make players fuck up and miss shots which will alert the entire base and get the Hunted status up and it doesn't help that they usually stand in spots where you can't take them out easily from certain angles forcing you to relocate or use up your Sync Shot. They're even annoying to pinpoint with the drone or binoculars since sometimes they like to stay ''just'' out of their detection vision range.

** Helicopters, this is probably the sole reason many players always carry an LMG with them at all times. Shooting the pilot is tough when they move around erratically so often time your only option is to just shoot it down normally, which takes time and the deadly weapons they carry requires you to hit and run. UNIDAD gunships are even worse since they have OneHitKill missiles and if you piss off them to Level 4 they'll usually send ''a pair'' of those to hunt you down.

* BaseBreakingCharacter: Karen Bowman. Some like her for being a snarky and competent handler, while others chafe at her {{Jerkass}} behaviour, even to the more sympathetic Cartel targets like La Gringa.

** Helicopters, this is probably the sole reason many players always carry an LMG with them at all times. Shooting the pilot is tough when they move around erratically so often time your only option is to just shoot it down normally, which takes time and the deadly weapons they carry requires you to hit and run. UNIDAD gunships are even worse since they have OneHitKill missiles and if you piss off them to Level 4 they'll usually sent ''a pair'' of those to hunt you down.

** Guards in watchtowers and gatehouses. They're prone to make players fuck up and miss shots which will alert the entire base and get the Hunted status up. It doesn't help that they usually stand in spots where you can't take them out easily from certain angles forcing you to relocate or use up your Sync Shot.

** Pretty much any mission where you instantly fail if you are detected.

** Snipers, they are very good shots and very deadly, but the worst thing about them is that they can spot you at long range and put the other enemies on alert, or even sound the alarm.

* GoddamnBats: Santa Blanca reinforcements. They aren't any different than normal enemies, save you don't have to spot their positions. But if you are too far away from an alerted Santa Blanca thug, that thug will call in reinforcements ''constantly''. Normally, this is just a minor annoyance. But if you happen to alert a Santa Blanca thug you haven't spotted yet standing hundreds of yards away, you could have to fight carload after carload of sicarios while desperately trying to find the one guy who is calling them all in.

** AA missile batteries. They're almost impossible to spot from the air, have a huge detection range, and their missiles are both {{One-Hit Kill}}s on any aircraft and very hard to evade (only small helicopters even have a chance). They're everywhere, and the more difficult provinces have so many of them that flying anything becomes frustrating. If one of those things wrecks you while you were piloting a captured resource aircraft to the rendezvous point, you can be forgiven for throwing a tantrum. For some baffling reason, none of the aircraft available in game carry countermeasures such as flares or chaff.

** Helicopters, this is probably the sole reason many players always carry an LMG with them at all times. Shooting the pilot is tough when they move around erratically so often time your only option is to just shoot it down normally, which takes time and the deadly weapons they carry requires you to hit and run.

** AA missile batteries. They're almost impossible to spot from the air, have a huge detection range, and their missiles are both [[OneHitKill One-Hit Kills]] on any aircraft and very hard to evade (only small helicopters even have a chance). They're everywhere, and the more difficult provinces have so many of them that flying anything becomes frustrating. If one of those things wrecks you while you were piloting a captured resource aircraft to the rendezvous point, you can be forgiven for throwing a tantrum. For some baffling reason, none of the aircraft available in game carry countermeasures such as flares or chaff.
** Unidad in general. Whereas Santa Blanca only calls in two cars stuffed with mid-tier reinforcements plus the occasional helicopter if you trip an alarm, Unidad summons increasingly powerful top-tier troops the longer you're fighting them, and their patrol levels escalate very quickly. At the highest level, two to three armored cars full of heavily armed and armored soldiers plus at least two OneHitKill helicopter gunships spawn again and again every minute or so until you escape the area or manage to hide for a very long time. Even without actively searching for the Ghosts, Unidad is annoying because of their ubiquitous patrols that have an uncanny tendency to show up at the worst possible moment to make your life even more miserable. That even the most basic Unidad grunt is more resilient and better armed than Santa Blanca's most experienced veteran sicarios only puts the icing on the cake.

* ValuesDissonance: The unironic depiction of AmericaSavesTheDay and TortureAlwaysWorks against AlwaysChaoticEvil foreigners, all without any introspection or self-awareness, was generally a trend most shooters grew out of in the early 2010s after ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine'' deconstructed the genre (though this is a pretty superficial interpretation of the game's plot, given how overtly cynical it frequently is about U.S. foreign intervention). Of course, it ''is'' a Tom Clancy game... Also, the fact that the Mexican military recently surrendered to the Sinaloa cartel after being defeated by them in open combat makes the premise of the game both HarsherInHindsight and less inherently unbelievable.

* AmericansHateTingle: The game got flak from the Bolivian government for depicting their country as a corrupt failed state (according to them) and various South American outlets denounce the game for perpetuating the negative stereotype of Latin America being a crime-ridden backwaters region run by drug cartels. The Bolivian government even went so far [[https://www.polygon.com/2017/3/3/14801948/bolivia-complains-to-french-embassy-ghost-recon-wildlands as to file a complaint to their French embassy directed at Ubisoft themselves.]]

* AcceptableTargets:
** The [[TheCartel Santa Blanca Cartel]], obviously! The game goes to great lengths to demonstrate just how sadistic and remorselessly evil they are. Making it all the more satisfying when you let [[AssholeVictim them]] [[PayEvilUntoEvil know what its like]] to be on the [[LaserGuidedKarma receiving end for a change]].
** In ''Fallen Ghosts'', it switches to [[HiredGuns mercenaries]]. And they're every bit as vile and despicable as the Cartel, if not, more so.

** In certain missions that sets up barricades, the AI is supposed to shoot at these checkpoints. Lose that aggro beforehand? The AI will not care a thing, unless you linger too long.

** Weapon customization is interesting, but is full of holes/inconsistencies. Weapons that should be able to equip attachments cannot (like the 6P41 having a railed fore-end but strangely being unable to accept foregrips), some weapons having incorrectly modeled attachments (the AUG A3's gigantic 30-round magazine and the [=M4A1=]'s oversized stock are notable examples).

** If a mission requires you to be on stealth and for some reason the player decides to shoot their guns (Like at alarms and Generators) while there are rebels nearby, the rebels can [[UnwantedAssistance aggro the enemy]] and fail the stealth segment. More painful if the mission requires you to not kill any enemies.

*** No damage runs requires [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the player to not receive any damage. If the target is a roaming target, or that you cannot stealth the mission (Like if the mission begins with the hunted phase on), it becomes a nightmare to avoid being detected and being shot, especially since it's on extreme difficulty where the AI has perfect accuracy.

* {{Sequelitis}}: The reception to the ''Narco Road'' DLC has been mostly negative due to the fact the missions focus heavily on vehicles (and vehicle control is one of the most criticized parts of the game). Also, the overall "tone" of the expansion feels more like a ''Grand Theft Auto'' game than a ''Ghost Recon'' game.

** The plot of Americans arriving in a Latin-American country to stop an infamous drug kingpin and his cartel makes this a video game adaptation of ''Series/{{Narcos}}''.

* HarsherInHindsight: The game starts on July 27, 2019 in the then-near future. By then, [[CrapsackWorld El Sueño is ruling Bolivia with an iron fist, using its people for his cartel's upkeep.]] In November that year, the popular leader Evo Morales (who coincidentally shares his surname with El Sueño) and his government, already plagued by allegations of drug trade involvement, had to resign amidst disputed election results [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere and fled to Mexico.]] Though real-life Bolivia fared a lot better than in the game, the country nevertheless faced a severe political crisis under the caretaker government of Jeanine Áñez, with reports of political killings, bitter protests and shootings of protesters by security forces, while Morales' exile led to a diplomatic crisis with Mexico.

* HarsherInHindsight: The game starts on July 27, 2019 in the then-near future. By then, [[CrapsackWorld El Sueño is ruling Bolivia with an iron fist, using its people for his cartel's upkeep.]] In November that year, the popular leader Evo Morales (who coincidentally shares his surname with El Sueño) and his government had to resign amidst disputed election results, [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere and fled to Mexico.]] Though real-life Bolivia fared a lot better than in the game, the country nevertheless faced a severe political crisis under the caretaker government of Jeanine Áñez, with reports of political killings and shootings of protesters abound, while Morales' exile led to a diplomatic crisis with Mexico.

** Coca for the altitude.

* HarsherInHindsight: The game starts on July 27, 2019 in the then-near future. By then, [[CrapsackWorld El Sueño is ruling Bolivia with an iron fist, using its people for his cartel's upkeep.]] In November that year, the popular leader Evo Morales (who coincidentally shares his surname with El Sueño) and his government had to resign amidst disputed election results, [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere and fled to Mexico.]] Though real-life Bolivia fares a lot better than in the game, the country still faces an uncertain future.