When did team Ghost become such dicks?

New Wildlands trailer is…fancy?

At the start of this Ghost Recon Wildlands trailer, I was a bit confused by what I was seeing. I thought this was some type of extravagant CGI, but it looked a bit stiff. Then it dawned on me that this was live action and I became even more confused. Since when did the actors for a minute-long promo reel become so lifeless? Also, why is team Ghost screwing around with a cat instead of eliminating their targets?

As you can see in this entirely pointless trailer, some sniper on a faraway hill is messing with a cat by using the laser pointer on his rifle. Now, I’m not sure if this is indicative of some form of emergent gameplay in Wildlands, but I don’t think any kind of military training covers animal playtime. I’m also pretty sure that fooling a cat into following your red dot would give your position away.

I’ve been cautiously optimistic about Ghost Recon Wildlands, but the more I see, the more my excitement drops. It looks like Ubisoft is turning this into another Watch Dogs or Assassin’s Creed and is forgetting exactly why Tom Clancy lent his name to a series of video games. Where is the hyper-realism and meticulous attention to detail?

Also, why are we three months away from release and only getting trailers like this? Shouldn’t there be substantial gameplay in here? Wouldn’t it be cooler to see this same scene play out in engine instead of whatever this crap is? I guess I’m just being so harsh because of how paint-by-numbers Ubisoft has made open-world games. I did enjoy Watch Dogs 2, so maybe my disgust is just misplaced.

Oh, you can also get in on the beta by heading over to the website. It is available on all three systems (PC, PS4 and Xbox One), so there really isn’t an excuse about not owning a particular platform.