Last week saw the release of the first expansion DLC for Tom Clancey’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands for Season Pass holders. Today will see the release of ‘Narco Road’ as standalone DLC for all. This time the player will be asked to create a new Ghost operative who will be given a unique mission objective; to infiltrate three criminal gangs in order to locate and identify a mysterious mastermind known only as El Invisible.
Oh believe me, I was genuinely intrigued by what Narco Road promised having enjoyed the main campaign. Narco Road offers a contrasting gameplay style to the main game in that the story behind it is focused on a solo operative conducting operations behind enemy lines. To this end, the AI controlled squad mates have been removed, you can still invite friends to form a squad to play Narco Road in co-op but if, like me, you choose to follow as the narrative suggests and play it solo, adjusting your style to a solo one offers a different challenge to the main campaign. On paper this expansion offers a lot, sadly in execution it has far more problems than accomplishments.
I found that Narco Road magnifies all the niggles and complaints I have about the main campaign and it baffled me at times how almost lazy it felt to see certain aspects just re-used from the main campaign despite Narco Road wanting to offer a different experience both in narrative and gameplay. When creating my new Ghost I wanted to immerse in the premise of a lone Ghost operative having to go undercover in criminal gangs so made the appearance more in tone with that. Now without realising that I had ultimately placed WWE’s Roman Reigns into my game world. But once he was in the game world he then had the same voice as my created Ghost Agent in the main campaign. So now I have two completely different agents in Wildlands with the same voice and for me, experience breaking.
The dialogue that was so cringe worthy at times in the main story is just as over the top in Narco Road. In order to win trust with each of the three crime gangs; Los Kamikazes, Death Riders and Los Jinetes Locos, you must impress their leaders by completing missions for them. Believing you are a mercenary gun for hire, the leaders will contact you once you enter their region. Talking with each leader showcases the lazy dialogue that really grated on me as I progressed through, each one a stereotypical exaggeration of the style and persona of that leader and gang. It would have been more entertaining if more care and thought had gone into the dialogue exchanges outside of being told what to during missions but instead it is all forgettable and at times painful to listen to.
Each of the gang leaders will set you missions to prove your skills, loyalty or just to impress them enough so that eventually they will give you the information you require to chase down El Invisible. Just like the main campaign, you work your way through a few missions before unlocking the final mission for that leader and gang. Some are multi-step missions and I found on occasion that some would glitch out on me, either not completing the missions despite doing what was required or failing to trigger dialogue to explain a step correctly which meant restarting the whole mission. Without the AI squad you are used to having as back up does raise the challenge level quite a bit considering the amount of enemies you can face is not reduced. It can get overwhelming at times when you enter a camp or base as part of the mission only to have five Unidad soldiers suddenly spawn right on top of you. Some may be run of the mill but some can be very much fun to play but when the break at times it just becomes frustrating. The level of trust you have with each gang is measured by a social media “follower bar” where completing story missions and side missions in that gang’s region will earn followers. The final boss mission will require a certain amount of followers to unlock it, so just doing the story missions will not be enough. Side missions readily available so completing a few will get you to that point and for the completionists out there, the follower bar extends far beyond what is needed to complete the leader’s missions so you can go back or just do all of them in the region to complete the bar, something I really did not feel any compulsion to do sadly.
New vehicles have been added with monster trucks and custom cars that look as though even Fast and Furious films looked at and thought “nah just a little too much”. Each one has an insane Nitrous Boost feature which is great for missions that have a time limit and good distance to traverse but for me, they helped using shortcuts such as simply getting on a motorbike and blasting the Nitrous to get me over hills and mountains. Vehicle use is just as cumbersome as the main game, the monster trucks can be a pain to control at speed and when taking a vehicle to full speed with the nitrous boost caused the screen to flicker as I approached warp speed for some reason.
Narco Road overall just felt as though it needed more effort into giving the player experience it wanted to deliver. It does highlight a lot of the issues the main game has due to it being a compact version of the main game. If you have done all you can do in the main campaign then Narco Road will give a few more extra hours of things to do, being separate from the main story means you can play it even if you have yet to finish that campaign, serving as a stand alone story campaign. What ultimately annoyed me was how underwhelming the ending to the story was. It picks up really well as you approach El Invisible but it has a very confusing ending that almost unravels the intention of the entire DLC which sadly left me scratching my head as to why they chose or decided that it was a good way to reward the player.
As an expansion Narco Road is ultimately riddled with issues and a lackluster ending but does give more things to do in the Wildlands world and would be more fun when played with friends in co-op but I hope the developers take on the feedback from this and the main campaign to deliver a fuller and richer experience in the next expansion because this just felt pretty meh by the conclusion.
