Tips and Tricks - Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands Guide - IGN (2024)

This page contains helpful information for all players that are playing Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands. If you've just begun playing and haven't put a lot of time into exploring Bolivia, this is important information you're going to need to start off right.

These are standard gameplay tips that will be useful to anyone playing in either single player or online multiplayer with a group. Though some information here may be basic to some, everything listed here is important to keep in mind as you play through Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands.

Things to Do First

When you first start playing Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands, these are some of the very first things you'll want to do to get started right.

USE your Tacmap TO GET Around

Once you finish creating a character and finally get inside the game, these tips will be useful while you explore the immense landscapes present in Wildlands' take on Bolivia. The Tacmap is essential for getting around Bolivia. There is a lot of information that you can find just by taking the moment to view your Tacmap.

As you complete missions and gather new information, more icons will appear on the tacmap to reveal various points of interest. These include enemy strongholds, side missions, skill upgrades, and weapon items. You can access dossiers and mission listings through your Tacmap.

Optimize Your Loadout from the start

Before you go looking around Bolivia for missions and side ops to complete, you need to make sure you're equipped for the job. Take a moment when you first start playing to look through your weapon loadout and choose the best weapons and equipment for the task ahead. Playing alone during missions may require a different loadout than if you were playing with others online.

A good loadout to use when playing alone is to have a medium/long-range weapon with a silencer and a light machine-gun or sniper rifle. This will give you the ability to be both stealthy and equipped for assaults against enemies. Either combination you go with will be enough for you to tackle any situation on lower difficulty levels, though it won't be the same if you decide to play at a higher difficulty.

Tag all supplies You Find

When exploring the open world or clearing enemy encampments, keep an eye out for any valuable supplies - either shining in the world or marked with a green icon on your minimap. These supplies are Fuel, Medicine, Food, and Communication Supplies.

Make sure to interact with these items to mark them for pickup. Tagging these supplies will allot more resources for you to use towards purchasing new skills within the character skills menu. Later skills will need much more resources to unlock them. So the more you have, the better.

Upgrade Your Character Skills

As you complete missions and gain experience, you’ll be able to improve upon various skills and abilities of your character. In order to obtain or improve a skill, you need a certain number of skill points and specific resources to purchase skill upgrades.

You can obtain extra skill points by leveling up from completing missions and side missions, as well as finding extra skill points that you discover while exploring. In addition to Skill Points, you will need different supply types to purchase specific skills.

You can also unlock EPIC SKILLS that give massive boosts to one type of skills for your character. This may be faster regeneration from injuries or a larger explosive radius for all explosions. However, in order to unlock these skills you will need to be at a minimum level for your character, as well as have at least one point purchased for every skill within the same skill tree. Once you have fulfilled both requirements, you will permanently have the EPIC SKILL unlocked for your character.

Open Rally Points for Fast Travel

You have the ability to fast travel between locations. It's a great alternative to driving around in a car to a given location that is far away. When possible, you'll want to discover as many Rally Points as possible around Bolivia. This will significantly cut down the time it takes to get from one side of Bolivia to the other.

It should be noted that you can only fast-travel between specific Rally Points when you aren’t engaged in combat with enemies, or discovered and are being hunted by them. Rally Points are locations color coded white on your tacmap, while any locations you can't fast travel to are outlined in black.

The more missions you complete and places you explore, the more Rally Points you will open up to use for fast travel. This will save you an immense amount of time when looking for any collectibles you may have missed or while you're trying to reach the next primary objective.

When fast traveling, try not to be seen by nearby enemies and get forced into combat. You won't be able to fast travel away from an encounter if you're discovered, even when there are only a few enemies in the area. If you're spotted, you will either need to eliminate all enemies or flee the scene to open up fast travel once again.

Pick up Collectibles along the way

You will occasionally find collectibles on the map while playing missions. Make sure you take a moment to pick them up when you find them, even if they aren't your biggest priority at the time. Every collectible you find, including weapons, kingslayer files, and intel, will give you more XP towards your character.

This will be helpful for when you're looking for collectibles later on, especially if the majority of the ones you found are located in places you've previously visited during missions. It will save you an extra trip to the same area. The locations of collectibles are revealed when you find Intel or interrogate enemies.

Complete Main Story Missions

Completing Story missions in Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands opens up more missions and bonuses, as well as give you XP to level up your character. These core missions relate to the main story of the game, and be expanded upon the narrative.

However, you can't play some story missions without gathering specific intel or obtaining new information from civilians or enemies. When you complete a mission, you will need to gather more new information in order to open up the next mission. Try to find all of the main intel whenever possible in order to open up more missions and gain bonus XP towards your character early on. During this time, you can also partake in side-missions that open up for even more XP.

The necessry documents you need to obtain to unlock new missions are marked on your tacmap once you finish a story mission. You can collect them at any time once you have their location marked. Gathering these as soon as possible will open up all of the main missions for you and give you additional XP towards your character.

Complete Easy Rebel Side Missions

You don't have to immediately start and finish all of the main missions right away, but can instead explore Bolivia and complete side missions. Completing some of the Rebel Side-Ops missions will begin to open up the Rebel Support Skills for later use. You will get notified when you're within the area of a Rebel Op, or when you obtain intel on specific locations for them.

Most of the first Rebel Ops you find in Itacua will be fairly easy, which allow you to call in a vehicle drop or distraction against enemies. But in addition to opening up these first skills, you also gain a nice boost in XP for your character, which makes them all the more useful early in the game.

Things Wildlands Doesn't Tell You

Here is some really important information that you should know that isn't explicitly told to you in anywhere within the game. While playin Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands, these are things discovered not included within any tutorials or game menus.

Each of these tips will help you stay efficient in completing missions, navigating your surroundings, and taking out enemies as you play solo or with a group.

If you have any extra tips that you discover while playing Tom Clancy's ghost Recon: Wildlands, feel free to add them to the list below!

Tagging Resources

Whenever you see an object that is flashing lightly, that is something you can tag for the Rebels to pick up. These are resources that you can use to purchase new upgrades on your character. Whenever you see something you can tag, make sure you take the time to do so, every bit of resources you find can help you gain new abilities and better skills.

There are four different kinds of resources you can gather while roaming around; Gasoline, Medicine, Comms Tools, and Food. There are some side missions that can give you a huge bonus of one specific resource when completed, which can make all the difference when obtaining helpful skills for your character. These will range from executing raids on enemy Armored trucks, attacking a stronghold, or even protecting a radio broadcast from being stopped.

You can also gain extra resources by finding smaller collectibles that appear on your Tacmap when exploring. Most buildings or structures will have a few extra resource pickups nearby that you can quickly grab while completing missions. Just walk up to them and tag them to gain their bonuses.

Driving Efficiently Around Bolivia

Getting around in Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands can be a bit time consuming, if not frustrating in some instances. Here are some things to remember while you navigate the country of Bolivia.

While it might be faster to cut throw areas to reach a destination while driving, most of the landscape in Itacua doesn’t lend itself to off-road driving. There are many hills, bumps, rocks, and large foliage that will make your path much harder to drive through towards your destination.

Most of the time, its a much better idea to drive along the main roads and paths towards your destination. Even off-road vehicles, like trucks or jeeps, can be difficult to drive around offroad away from roads or highways. Not all situations are like this however, and you can sometimes cut corners to avoid something ahead of you.

But sometimes doing so will be a very bad idea and will lead to you falling off a cliff, or even slamming right into a large rock or tree. Most of the time, your car may end up flipping over after going over a chain of bumps, or even being heavily damaged.

Using Other Vehicles while Traveling

Sometimes you can find a different vehicle ­to use that may be faster than a typical car you find. You can drive motorcycles, large trucks, and pilot helicopters and planes to move around the country. These are more efficient ways of traveling greater distances and avoiding unwanted attention from enemies. The only exception to this is using helicopters to fly over enemy bases, which always leads to having missle launcher detect and fire at you.

If you aren't able to fast travel to a location, but still want to get there fast, try looking for a different mode of transportation nearby. There will alwyas be something you can drive or pilot wherever you are. By helping out the Rebel Forces, you can even gain the ability to emergency drop in an extra car or helicopter if needed.

Fast Traveling to Teammate Positions

When playing online multiplayer with any number of other player, you can fast travel to another player's position when not engaged in combat. This can be helpful for getting around Bolivia and completing missions together that some players may not have activated. Players that don't have some Rally Points unlocked can still fast travel to players who are still able to do so.

Fast Traveling to another player's location also allows everyone to regroup should anyone fall in combat and not be revived. Any player who is left to bleed out can choose to spawn on another player's position after a set amount of time from being downed. This can only be done during online multiplayer sessions and not with A.I. teammates when playing solo.

You Can Skip Main Missions in Multiplayer

When you are playing online with other teammates, you actually have the ability to skip some of the main missions. This can only be done however if another player has already opened up or completed a specific mission you are trying to play. This allows some players to bypass some of the lower bosses and immeditaely take on missions that have prerequisites.

If at least one player has a mission open or completed, they can start the mission up and prompt everyone in the squad to join in. When the mission is complete, everyone in the group will get credit for finishing the mission. Even if you haven't unlocked the mission yourself or completed any of the other main missions below it, you'll still get credit and the rewards for completing it. This is an easy trick to bypass most of the game and go straight for any of the Santa Blanca Cartel bosses, or even the final boss El Sueno.

This can be done with any number of players in the squad and doesn't necessarily need a full group to be done. You can also use any XP Boosters you have in your inventory to gain additional XP from these missions as well.

Boosters Give Additional XP - Power Leveling

When you complete missions and take down enemies, you gain XP towards your character to level up and obtain Skill Points. However, you can gain additional XP by utilizing Boosters that you can obtain from pre-ordering the game or through the Ghost Recon Wildlands in-game store. Boosters improve the percentage of additional XP you gain for everything you do, but only last for a certain amount of time.

When playing in multiplayer, you can use a Booster to increase the XP you gain, as well as give an additional boost to the XP that your teammates gain. If you have a full 4-player squad online, it may be possible to stack the effects of the XP boost you gain from Boosters.

NOTE: This is still unconfirmed and has not been properly tested fully to see if true. Some players have reported that the effects of each booster from a player in a squad DO stack effects for more XP gains, but this might not fully be the case.

Things You Should Not Do in Wildlands

There are some things that you should try very hard not to do while playing Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands. Most of the time, going about a mission or approaching a situation one way will lead to failure, especially when playing on higher difficulties. Enemies will capitalize on your mistakes and kill you if you aren't careful.

Here are some important things to avoid at all cost. If you discover more tips on what to be wary of, feel free to add them to the list below!

Don't Go into Missions Unprepared

Its very important to bring the right weapons and equipment with you when taking on different missions in. You should definitely change your loadout and equip the best weapons to your character for the right situation. If you neglect to do this, you will end up making situations and scenarios harder on yourself, and nearly impossible to complete in some cases.

This is equally as important for your Character Skills. If you don't spend Skill Points to unlock new abilities and skills, you may find some missions incredibly more difficult to complete. Some skills you unlock are necessary for a select number of missions that require a stealthy approach. So its best to update your character skills frequently as you progress through the game's various missions.

Don't Ignore Picking Up Supplies

Skill Points are very important for obtaining new skills as you level up, but you still need supplies to purchase them. Better skills on the Skill Tree for your character will cost more and more supplies to obtain them, so you need to constantly have enough supplies.

When exploring around, make sure you pick up supplies you see laying around the area. Whenever possible, try to take on a few of the supply side-missions that give you large boosts of different supplies to spend on new Skills. If you ignore doing any of this, you will not be able to purchase some of the later skills that are vital.

Don't Casually Approach Bases and Strongholds

When approaching places that have a concentrated amount of enemies in one spot, its best to avoid directly entering the area. Doing so is almost guaranteed to alert them, as well as put you in their direct line of sight. This is especially true for bases that have turret guns stationed along the perimeter or snipers posted in high areas nearby.

This is also true for approaching bases or strongholds while piloting a helicopter or another vehicle. Unless you are driving a vehicle that is from the same Faction as the nearby base or stronghold, you will be spotted and alert enemies into firing on you. In some instances when flying a helicopter, bases will have missile launchers nearby that will fire if you fly too close within the area. Its always a better idea to fly far away enough to land nearby without alerting the base of your presence.

Don't Interrogate Enemies While in Combat

This may sound like common sense, but its important to know that you are NOT invincible when interrogating enemies or speaking to civilians. When doing either of the two, you temporarily lose control of your characters until the dialogue exchange is complete.

During this time, you can be shot and killed quickly without any way to defend yourself for the time. This can be devastating when you grabbed a key enemy and can't do anything as you are gunned down during the dialogue. You can stop the exchange mid-talk, but most of the time you or the enemy will be killed.

Grabbing important enemies for interrogation is also a sure way to fail a mission quickly if there are enemies firing on you nearby. When you grab an enemy, you use them as a human shield against gun fire, which can kill them quickly before you. If you have a person-of-interest in hand, you will want to run away behind cover immediately if you notice any shots being fired your way before interrogating.

Don't Constantly Kill the Unidad Soldiers

The Unidad Faction is the army of the country that will constantly attack you are noticed or if provoked via gun fire. This will increase the Unidad Patrol rank for the given moment. If you kill more soldiers or destroy Unidad vehicles, the rank will increase and provoke more Unidad soldiers with bigger guns and stronger weapons to appear.

Its best to avoid fighting the Unidad if you can, especially when you are trying to complete missions and side-missions. The higher Unidad Patrol will make things very difficult for you to complete any tasks and make it just as difficult to get away and lose notoriety. At some point, usually between Rank 3 or 4 Unidad Patrol, the Unidad will start calling for mortar shots on your position. When this happens, it will be increasingly difficult to get away unscathed.

Tips for Combat and Stealth

You'll be engaging enemies in many battles while you complete missions. Here are some tips to help you take down enemies quickly and efficiently.

Use Your A.I. Teammates

Your teammates, whether AI or human controlled, are your biggest asset in any given situation. They will have your back when you're focused on completing objectives or taking down another enemy. While human squad members are superior in most situations, working together with your A.I. squad mates can make most scenarios easier to approach.

Should you get shot enough in battle and fall, your A.I. squad members can revive you back one time in combat. As long as you're within a close range of at least one ally, they will move to your location and revive you. While online with other players in multiplayer, you will have to communicate with your teammates if you need to be revived.

If you happen to fall once again, you will respawn at the previous checkpoint before the engagement. Always make sure you have a nearby ally whenever you predict you'll be in a fire fight. It can be the difference between success and having to replay an entire section over again.

Your allies can also attack enemies while you are driving a vehicle. This is helpful for on-road engagements, as well as when you're trying to escape from a location. When you're playing single player, you want to be the one in the driver's seat instead of you A.I. squad members.

Not only do they have great aim while the vehicle is moving, but you will be able to go in the direction you wish to travel, rather than random directions because of the A.I. being behind the wheels.

Sync Shot with your allies

The Sync Shot ability is a great way to take out multiple enemies at once. When you're playing solo, you can use your drone or aim down the sight of your gun to mark different enemies that your allies will focus on and engage once you fire upon an enemy. This is great for raiding enemy strongholds or checkpoints when you need to maintain a stealthy approach.

You need to unlock the the Sync Shot ability with your Skill Points, and boost it up with more skill points to mark more targets while engaging. Its an invaluable ability that you will frequently use on most missions when you want to have a stealthy approach, but the Sync Shot can still be helpful when you're assaulting a location.

Using Stealth Helps A Lot

Unlike some Ghost Recon games in the past, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands doesn't harshly punish players for not being stealthy during missions. However, approaching things with stealth can be incredibly rewarding in almost any situation.

Try to keep enemies unaware of your presence when you are executing mission objectives and you'll be able to dwindle down enemy numbers. Taking out lots enemies while undetected will help limit the difficulty of a situation when things get loud.

Enemies that you fail to kill when you are spotted will call for reinforcements and make things more difficult for you. You won't get a game over immediately when this happens, but you will have a much harsher fire fight to deal with. But if you stay quiet and remain hidden, you'll have a much smoother time completing your objectives.

Extra Weapons for Gunsmith

Hidden throughout the environment are weapon cases that unlock new guns to add to your weapon loadouts. You need to find these cases to unlock new kinds of weapons at Rally Points, which you can customize your individual loadout. There are a select number of weapon cases you can find; their locations are revealed on your tacmap.

If you find yourself struggling with a given mission or side ops, try taking some time to gather these extra weapons and give yourself a better edge in combat. You will notice a difference in how you approach missions when you have more gun options open to you.

Gather Information From Civilians to Find Collectibles

The civilians of Bolivia can be super helpful when finding out the locations of points and items of interest. Make sure you take the time to stop and speak with local civilians for information on where you can find Skill Upgrades and Weapon Items. Whenever a civilian that you can speak with is nearby, an icon will appear over them.

When you speak with civilians, you can choose which locations you want to know about and have appear on your Tacmap. You can choose to reveal Side Missions, skill point locations, weapon items, or resource locations. The selected option will immediately appear on your tacmap. You will need to find other civilians in order to select the other options.

In addition, interrogating enemies and finding intel caches during missions can also reveal locations on your Tacmap. You can grab and interrogate certain enemies that are marked on your map when you get close to their location or tag them with your drone. Intel caches are handled the same way, but can be found in buildings and a variety of other areas.