Ghost Recon: Wildlands spawns a live action short, debuting on Twitch and Amazon next month
Ghost Recon: Wildlands had better duck. Ubisoft is throwing everything it has at it.
Ghost Recon: Wildlands doesn't seem to be achieving the sort of hype you'd expect from a big budget Ubisoft release, but it's not for lack of trying. The latest promotional effort is a live-action short.
Called Ghost Recon Wildlands: War Within the Cartel, the 30 minute movie will debut on Ubisoft's Twitch channel on February 16, and then become available for download via Amazon Prime immediately after the stream.
As the title and teaser above probably suggested, the short is all about the Santa Blanca cartel featured in Ghost Recon: Wildlands. Headed up by one El Sueño, the cartel has turned Bolivia into a "narco-state", but there's a traitor in its midst. El Muro (Head of Security), El Yayo (Head of Production), Nidia Flores (Head of Operations) and Head of Influence (El Cardenal) are tasked with tracking down the turncoat, which leads into the events of the game.
Grammy winning hiphop artist Tip “T.I.” Harris plays Marcus, one of the members of the cartel. The series is directed by Avi Youabian, a prolific editor with a couple of TV directing credits on Tainted Love and The Walking Dead. The executive producer is Orlando Jones, who is often remembered as one of the MADtv cast but has a stack of producing and writing credits in addition to his acting work. (He's playing Mr Nancy in the upcoming American Gods series, by the by.)
Ghost Recon: Wildlands releases in March for PC, PS4 and Xbox One. It's an open world, third-person tactical shooter playable with up to three mates, or AI companions if you like to roll solo, and persistent progression.
We haven't seen all that much of it, but the same could be said of Rainbow Six Siege, which quietly blew up after launch. It's the first core Ghost Recon game since 2012's Future Soldier, which has to count for something, and a return to mainstream games for Ubisoft Paris after several years of focus on Just Dance.