I know â Iâm late to the game with Year 2 updates for Ghost Recon: Wildlands and a lot’s happened since my last proper video or update. But the other day I loaded the game and there was a BIG update â Title Update 15 â available. I download and install the update and I get back into the game and it shows me some cards on the title screen:
- Title Update 15
- Archangel special challenges are now live
- Prestige Crates are available!
So Iâll try and keep this short, but thereâs a lot to go through. If youâre a subscriber you my YouTube channel and this summary has brought you back to my channel, thank you so much! If you’re not a subscriber, and you find this summary useful or interesting, please consider subscribing and clicking the notification bell icon to be notified when I upload new videos.
I’m posting this after 24 July when this update was released and as I mentioned, this is a big update â âSPECIAL OPERATION 2â. The Ubisoft intro for this reads:
âOn July 24th, our second update of Year 2 will be released: Special Operation 2. This update will be available on PC, PlayStationÂź4, and Xbox One. The size of the patch will be 6GB on Steam, 18GB on Uplay and up to 18GB on consoles depending on your version. Please note that you will need to restart and update your platform to be able to play online.â
Most of what Iâm about to go through is in the reveal video you can see below:
Year 2 roadmap
But let’s start by taking a look at the roadmap for Year 2…
Although it doesn’t show any expected dates, it shows we’ll have four Special Operation updates and highlights the four expectations for Special Operation 2:
- Strong theme â Special Operation 1 had a Splinter Cell theme, and we can expect a Rainbow Six Siege theme here
- PvE experiences â for campaign play
- Ghost War PvP updates â LOADS of additions here this time
- Community requested features â the developers seem to really be listening to the community and adding in worthwhile features
So, what’s new?
I’m going to summarise this update in my own words because in the past I’ve read the updates verbatim but you can read all the details for yourself in theUbisoft patch notes blog post, so let’s jump in because there’s a lot to cover!
Free Rainbow Six Siege mission
This is a new mission in Caimanes you can activate and earn Caveira Gloves, which unlock “the position of all enemies within the vicinity in our Campaign Mode”.
Will this be too OP and get nerfed? I guess we’ll see how it works first.
AI Teammate toggle on/off
You’ll now be able to play completely on your own by disabling your AI teammates if you choose. But… downs will count as deaths because there will be nobody to revive you!
Ghost Mode
This is a big one. Requested by the community, this has loads of pretty cool features to extend the challenge of the campaign game. It’s described as:
âa new permadeath PvE game mode for those really looking for a challengeâ
(If you don’t know, PvE is âPlayer vs Environmentâ as opposed to PvP which is âPlayer vs Playerâ.)
Ghost Mode is a free mode available to Year 2 Pass holders only until 31 July and everyone else thereafter, and allows you to play solo or co-op in any difficulty, including Tier 1 by making it more of a challenge. How?
You can only carry one primary weapon â instead of the usual two â and a pistol. Weapons can only be changed at ammo boxes, and reloads will lose the ammo still in your magazine, just like in real life.
It also includes friendly fire â for AI and your co-op friends. I would say watch where you shoot, but really… watch where you walk!
This is all available with the option above to toggle AI teammates on and off as well. So you could maximise your personal challenge by disabling AI teammates and playing Ghost Mode in Tier 1! đ±
They’re also added milestones in the game which rewards you with Prestige Credits (more on that in a bit). Does this mean weâd want to start playing from scratch in Itacua with a new campaign slot just to play Ghost Mode? Iâll find out after 31 July, but it has a separate option in the main menu, just like Ghost War, so maybe itâs already its own separate mode?
Character / AI customisation
You can now change the face and gender of your character and AI teammates at any time.
Proximity mines
These have been added to PvE and PvP. I thought previously that the mines in game only affected vehicles, so these should be anti-personnel mines I guess. We’ll see. Let me know in the comments if I’m wrong.
Social Items
Three new item categories have been added: Emotes, Voice Lines and Victory Poses. Also a new Social Wheel in addition to the Comms Wheel, you can now select the Social Wheel and choose up to 5 Emotes and 5 Voice Lines. What are Emotes and Voice Lines?
Emotes are character animations that can be triggered at any time, such as a face palm đ€Šđ»ââïž
Voice Lines are sound barks from your character, which can only be heard by teammates and co-players.
Victory Poses are stances your character makes in the victory screen of Ghost War PvP and are seen by all players, a bit like Call of Duty introduced in Black Ops 3 with taunts in the Winnerâs Circle.
Observer Mode
In Ghost War you can now join a custom lobby in a dedicated slot as an observer.
This gives you access to spectator-friendly tools such as seeing playerâs locations highlighted, seeing their load out and deployed items, and allows you to follow a playerâs point-of-view. There’s also a free roam camera view.
New classes
There are two new classes for Ghost War too: Surgeon and Toxic, in reference to two Rainbow Six operators, Doc and Smoke.
Surgeon is an assault class and comes with MPD-0 Stim Pistol. What does that do? This lets you heal and revive downed teammates by shooting them with this gun. Maybe this will be OP? You play and decide. The Stim Pistol gets 5 shots and a cooldown, and the Surgeon also gets a passive HP bonus.
Toxic is a support class and gets a drone that shoots deadly sulphur bombs. These create a gas cloud that damages all players inside it, both enemy and friendly. The gas helps negate cover and infiltrates buildings to flush out enemies, but it doesnât blind players and it can be easily seen through.
Both new classes are available 24 July to Year 2 Pass holders, and can also be bought using Prestige Credits after 31 July.
Class balancing for PvP
I wonât go into this in detail (sorry), but if you’re interested, take a look at the notes in the blog post.
New maps
Ghost War is also getting two new maps.
Checkpoint is a map for Elimination Mode and is the first Ghost War snow map, set in Inca Camina. It contains snowy mountains for long-range sniping, and a Santa Blanca outpost for CQC.
The Factory map is for Sabotage Mode, located in a Santa Blanca factory in what looks like Remanzo. It contains catwalks and elevated areas providing a mix of CQC and mid-range sniping.
Daily Challenges
Also added to Ghost War, you’ll receive one challenge per day, can hold a maximum of five open challenges, and will earn Prestige Credits by completing these. They’ll vary in difficulty and award different amounts of Prestige Credits accordingly.
Ranked play additions
A new Progression Bar tracks your ranked play progress, gives you feedback when you win and lose matches and lets you know your league position and how close you are to rank promotion or demotion.
The new Elite Position in ranked play is described as:
“The Elite Rank will now tell your exact position in that league, compared to other Elite players.”
There will be two Double XP events per week now, 24 hours each and advertised in the menu when live (only for ranked play).
Prestige revamp
Hold tight, there’s a lot to go through here! Prestige has been reworked to meet community feedback.
With changes to Prestige Progression, Prestige will now be automatically activated when you reach level 50, after which you begin again at level 1. Unlocked classes, bonuses and perks will NOT be reset any more when you first prestige. Every upgrade point will be automatically spent to unlock all non-prestige progression tree items.
The Prestige level cap has been increased from 10 to 999, and the Prestige Credits reward per level-up has been decreased from 215 to 115.
Prestige Crates are a new type of crate which can only be purchased with Prestige Credits and each one contains a customisation item.
“From now on, new customization items will be added to our Spec Ops and Ghost War Battle Crates, whereas Prestige Crates will contain previously released items (minus Icons, which remain available via our Battle Crates only).”
Ubisoft have provided a link to the full list of Battle Crate items for reference, and they’ve also introduced an item counter which increments every time you get an item from a Prestige Crate. Duplicate items still increment the counter by one but also give you 10 Store Credits. When your counter reaches 20 it resets and you get a Battle Crate.
The Prestige Store has been added to the regular store which now has a new tab for the Prestige Store. In the store you can use Prestige Credits to buy Classes, Armory Packs and Prestige Crates…
Armory Packs are used to customise your Ghost War Classes and contain weapons found in campaign that may not already be in Ghost War.
There are now new ways to earn Prestige Credits, not only through Prestige in Ghost War but also through progressing the Campaign Challenge system, the new Ghost Mode and Tier 1 Mode. PvP voting, PvP progression and PvP ranked sessions also earn Prestige Credits.
PC menu text chat
They’ve added the ability to text-chat on PC through the menus, either with players in the session or with their own squad.
Post-match screen
As mentioned above, the winning team in Ghost War is now showcased with information about members where everyone will see the equipped Victory Poses.
Player squad showcasing
You can see which players are in a squad while matchmaking and playing online.
Drones
I do like a drone. All drones now have their maximum marking range decreased to 250m. Drone HUDs will now signal this. I know the drone range from you was already 250m, but I didn’t know the marking range wasn’t already limited so we’ll see how this works I guess.
Store updates
Spec Ops and Ghost War Battle Crates have a new range of customization items. Icon Skins have been added for Rainbow Six operators: JĂ€ger, Blitz, Zofia, Vigil, Blackbeard, Capitao and Jackal. Icons are only available through Battle Crates.
There’s a new Rainbow Six equipment pack you can equip to get the look of the Siege operators, available for PvE and Ghost War PvP. This contains:
- 1 Hole Balaclava
- a Wrapped Shemagh
- a Caveira Icon (including her iconic CQC)
- a new Voice Line and Emote
- 416 Rifle and Luison weapon skin (both only available for use in PvE)
Note: Caveira Gloves only unlock the position of nearby enemies in PvE.
Bug fixes
There are a tonne of fixes which I don’t have time to go through either, so if you’re interested please read the blog post.
Wow! This is an awesome update, which keeps the game fresh I think. The community wanted some of this at launch and a lot of players have gone cold on the game, and typically people donât return to old games, they just play new ones. Hopefully this will be enough to get some of you back into the, especially as Ghost Recon: Wildlands is now on sale and this update is FREE!
Buy Ghost Recon: Wildlands on Amazon UK*
We still have Special Operation 3 AND 4 to come this year, so who knows what we’ll receive in those updates. Will there be a Year 3? I almost hope there won’t be, because I’d like the devs to be working on Wildlands 2 instead. I’d happily pay to get in on that.
Prestige Crates
So I said I’d open some Prestige Crates. Iâve apparently earned some Prestige Credits, and as I donât play Ghost War, I wonât be spending these in the Prestige Store or on Armory Packs or anything. So Iâm going to exchange these points for Prestige Crates and letâs open them. This could be a huge anti-climax, but Iâm curious to see what you get in these things… check out the video at the top of this post to watch the opening of 30 Prestige Crates.