The research to compress Bolivia into a map was extraordinary. The sense of place as you play through is so strong, you can see a screenshot years later and know exactly where it was shot.
The "game loop" of the first release was perhaps simplistic*, but by Fallen Ghosts the formula drew on what they learned from Breakpoint (a failed open world but with better game play feel).
Nearly a decade later, Wildlands retains its appeal.
To your "too much time and money to do well", this did take a lot of work.
Weirdly, for Breakpoint Ubisoft said: Well, in Wildlands we made the mistake of designing the world, then putting stories in it. So the pacing was off, you could spend too much time exploring without an encounter, or have too many encounters all in a cluster. So in Breakpoint, we designed game encounters, and made sure the world spaced them out well, it's so much better. In players' view, for the world/map design, they were wrong.
* If you run and gun, you miss the scenario design effort they put in. Any given scenario was designed to enable strategic stealth, tactical assault, heavy or light, rewarding teams that played co-op and talked through a plan before going in. This is where Wildlands really shines, 4 people on headsets playing deliberately, "slow is smooth and smooth is fast".
The research to compress Bolivia into a map was extraordinary. The sense of place as you play through is so strong, you can see a screenshot years later and know exactly where it was shot.
The "game loop" of the first release was perhaps simplistic*, but by Fallen Ghosts the formula drew on what they learned from Breakpoint (a failed open world but with better game play feel).
Nearly a decade later, Wildlands retains its appeal.
Story of the research and art design:
https://www.vg247.com/ghost-recon-wildlands-building-bolivia...
Fan appreciation:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Wildlands/comments/yqtbvt/wildlands...
To your "too much time and money to do well", this did take a lot of work.
Weirdly, for Breakpoint Ubisoft said: Well, in Wildlands we made the mistake of designing the world, then putting stories in it. So the pacing was off, you could spend too much time exploring without an encounter, or have too many encounters all in a cluster. So in Breakpoint, we designed game encounters, and made sure the world spaced them out well, it's so much better. In players' view, for the world/map design, they were wrong.
* If you run and gun, you miss the scenario design effort they put in. Any given scenario was designed to enable strategic stealth, tactical assault, heavy or light, rewarding teams that played co-op and talked through a plan before going in. This is where Wildlands really shines, 4 people on headsets playing deliberately, "slow is smooth and smooth is fast".