The release of Ghost Recon: Wildlands is fast approaching. The game made big waves at E3 a few years ago but slowly and quietly faded from view after Ubisoft adopted a new method in promoting their games. Well, now we've reached a point where the beta sign-ups are available, so you can play the game for yourself.
Ubisoft sent out a press release directing gamers to the official Ghost Recon website where you can sign up for the beta process taking place in North America. The site will first take you to the age-gate portal where you'll need to insert your birth date and then you will be taken to a screen where you'll need to login using your Ubisoft account.
If you don't have a Ubisoft account it's possible to create an account using your Facebook account, your PlayStation Network ID or your Xbox Live account. They don't give a specific date on when the beta will start, but they'll definitely need to do it soon given that Ghost Recon: Wildlands is due to drop on March 7th, 2017. This gives them only three months in which to conduct the beta test.
Now I know some people might think that three months is plenty of time, but you have to take into consideration things like a weekend's worth of data needing to be sorted through and collected, and then the team has to modify and make changes to the game's multiplayer based on that data and feedback, and then they have to test the new changes and iterate whatever bugs or other glitches might be present.
This process can take anywhere between two weeks to a month, depending on the amount of data they collect, the feedback they receive and what amount of work has to be put into the game based on those changes.
What's more is that Ghost Recon: Wildlands is going to need several weeks for certification, so that would be most of February, which would mean that the beta would have to take place either sometime this month or in January if they want to make sure that they get the changes implemented and fixed before the March 7th release.
A perfect example of a game that didn't have a proper beta before release is Watch Dogs 2. The game recently went live for home consoles and PC during November, but it launched on the Xbox One and PS4 without the seamless multiplayer integration due to Ubisoft finding a nasty bug in the seamless matchmaker the weekend before the game was due for release. So, in order to smash out the bug and make sure that the game worked properly, they had to launch Watch Dogs 2 without the seamless multiplayer.
Given that the four-player co-op plays a much more substantial role in Ghost Recon: Wildlands compared to Watch Dogs 2, it makes sense why Ubisoft would conduct a beta test and ensure that the drop-in co-op works properly and that everything is synched up nicely.
The open-world military shooter has gamers cautiously optimistic, but after the beta test we'll likely get a much stronger indication as to how people really feel about the game.
