The closed beta opened up this morning. There's a topic for people to share invites for beta codes - if you're looking to get in check it out!

FYI - playing on Xbox One.

I just got hands on with this game and am typing this up as I go through the beginning of the closed beta. Right off the bat, Ubisoft muddles the ability to share the beta codes with all of their hoops to jump through by forcing you to use their Ubisoft club, etc, etc, convolution the entire process.

The first cut scene is technically nice looking and sets up a somewhat canned story but at the very least interesting. Then we go into the character creation...

Wow.... Character creator. I just got done typing up a diatribe about the lack of choices for the character creator. Well, I just deleted that whole paragraph. Yes, the options for physical traits (head, face, etc.) are slim. However, once you get to the accessories and clothing items available - again, WOW. Ubisoft learned a thing or two for The Division and, boy, did they go out and get the brand deals with this game! 5.11, Oakley, Camelback, just to name a few. They initial options for making your characters appearance is definitely robust and is probably the most fun I've had creating a character in a long time. There's no dragging faces, setting sliders or eyebrow height, or any of that. They clearly focus on your characters outward appearance and it is refreshing.

Opening cut scene - not the greatest looking game, voice acting is kind of goofy, strange dialogue, I don't know. I put sunglasses on my character and he's wearing them while flying in a helicopter at night. Minor oversight but whatever. The more this cut scene goes on the more and more it seems like the dialogue and mouth movement isn't lining up very well. Clearly Ubisoft likes starting off their games with you flying in on a helicopter.

Into the gameplay - it actually looks better than the cut scene. The landscape looks really nice and the textures are what you would expect or better on a console. Controls feel natural, gameplay is fun, and there seems to be a good amount of variation to what you can do for skills, loadouts, etc. I'll keep playing and finish up the closed beta area and see what it all has to offer. As of right now I'm highly considering making this my first purchase of the year!

What do you think about the closed beta?

I'm on PC running an i7 7700k, 16GB of RAM, and a GTX 1070.

I get 60 FPS standing still, with drops to 45 FPS when driving around, and that is with settings on High @1080p (there is very high setting), screen space reflections/god rays off, second-highest ambient occlusion, and using FXAA instead of more demanding options.

I'm waiting for a driver update or a patch because at this point it's pretty terrible.

how is the game structured? Is it an open world with missions on it like The Division? Or something else

Don't switch the blade on a guy in shades (oh no)

@mister_v: hard to say exactly what it's structured like. I would say there are some similarities to The Dicision but it's definitely not a carbon copy.

@clairvoyantvibrations: @bollard: exactly.....

Just got my code this morning. Hope to try out some co-op with my brother tonight.

Can anyone give any meaningful gameplay feedback? What do you do? Is it open world? Is there a hub area of some kind where you manage your tasks/loot/etc? How do you meet up with other players? Do you see them out and about? Are missions instanced?

I'm kinda baffled this doesn't have the Division style per mission matchmaking. That was such a cool system and this game could benefit from it so much. The fact that any missions you do in someone elses game doesn't carry over to your own is also stupid. The game constantly bugs you to join an online session but the progress does not carry over! Some very odd decisions in the design of this game.

I like it, but the driving mechanics are atrocious... I'm sure with time you can get used to it but it's stiff as fuck. I'm getting a ps2 era SOCOM vibe set in a MGS:V go where you want environment.

Honestly, I'm worried. The performance is godawful, the game is quite buggy in general, and it just feels unfinished. The game comes out in one month.

I hope they manage to fix it up in time, because I want this game to be good.

I'm having a lot of fun. Performance could be better, but it'll be fine if it gets another optimization pass and driver update. Maxed out at 1440p with a 1070 and 4690k i was getting drops to 30fps. I turned down the draw distance a hair (still fantastic distance on high), subsurface scattering off, shadows down 2 notches and I'm pretty steady around 60 while the game still looks good. The driving isn't good (had Ubi ever done good driving?) but I like that I can drift all the vehicles easily in a dumb way. Going around cliffs while swinging my ass out is fun.

The problem I have is that I can't get the mouse movement smooth. With a controller it's all good, but it feels like the game isn't registering all my mouse movements. It's just not smooth. I bumped the sensitivity way up to get around it for now. Mouse started working fine after restarting the game.

A few random thoughts after running around for about 90 minutes.

• I wish you could queue up for specific missions for co-op.
• Decent character customization. Looks like some cosmetics are unlocked through gameplay (and presumably real money).
• Bullet drop feels good.
• Nice thud when hitting enemies. Combat feels good because of it. Engagements at long range feel good because of the bullet's travel time.
• The lighting is real nice (firing across a field at night and seeing the tracers light up the ground and vegetation around it is sweet).
• Missions don't seem that interesting so far. Go here, extract or interrogate dude, hit E to investigate object.
• Voice acting is hit or miss, mostly miss.
• Has a skill tree and a bunch of unlockable weapon attachments. Scratches my "unlock" itch without making me feel weak in the early game.
• Map seems very large. Beta kills you if you stray too far. I wonder if it'll all be open from the start at release or if it's locked behind progression.
• I feel like I can tackle the missions however I want, but no incentive to go quiet or to spare lives. It feels good to be all tactical, but the game doesn't care.
• Difficulty needs to ramp up a lot from the early missions. I never feel like I need my squad. Most bases can be cleared with a silenced semi-auto rifle by myself.
• Squad AI isn't great. They're good at not getting spotted, but they don't feel useful. It's definitely meant to be played with other humans.
• Spent about 20 minutes flying a helicopter around and ordering my dudes to shoot down at enemies.
• Your drone and binoculars mark lights that can be shot out, there's night vision, and you can toggle the lights on vehicles. Hopefully the game uses its rather nice lighting for stealth options.
• I like it overall for what I'm looking for. I just want to run around an open world with my buddies and mess around. Will we still have interesting stuff to do after a few hours? That's my worry.

Enjoying it more than I had hoped, I'm really happy with it.

The character customization is pretty insane with the amount of options, most of them being unlocked for the beginning, and it let's you go in and change your clothing at any time. Shooting feels good, it seems they learned from people complaining about The Division's bullet sponge enemies. Map seems very large. I would like to see comparisons to other games. The beta map feels large and it's only 1/16 of the full map.

Biggest complaint is the framerate. It dips pretty noticeably at times (on Xbox here), especially when driving, which already has some dodgy (but serviceable) controls. I hope they're able to improve it a little by launch. Other big complaint is how they don't (to my knowledge) let you control what shoulder the camera focuses over; it appears to switch automatically based on your cover. This doesn't always work perfectly though, and I can't figure it why they don't let you switch it manually.

Overall delighted to see it turned out to be a pretty good game. Wasn't sure what to make of all their super canned demos. Like someone said earlier, it has some MGSV vibes with some solid third person shooter gameplay. More than enough for my purchase.

Impressions so far:

@nasher27: To be fair, they didn't really have to learn anything from The DIvision since it's more of an RPG and not so grounded in reality, gameplay wise, even though the setting is somewhat realistic. It's more similar to something like Borderlands or Destiny than it does to something like Ghost Recon. Also Ubi Paris is the lead for this game and Massive was the lead for The Division.

Anyways, I'm enjoying it so far. Played it mostly solo but playing in co-op even with public matchmaking was really enjoyable. I played GRAW a long time ago co-op (RIP GRIN) and that was a lot of fun.

@thatonedudenick: Can you adjust your mice DPI settings if possible? If you can you can set that high and just turn sensitivity in-game to 0

@kcin: If you can try watching streams so you can somewhat get a better idea in actio. It is an open world game, there's no hubs or anything like that (this isn't Destiny or The Division) but you can basically play it solo but if you play it online you can join via matchmaking and join somebody's session and you can do mission's however you want that way. To be fair, there are different big sections in the full game (about 21) each being controlled by a boss and in this beta it's only showing one big area but it's one huge open world. Missions aren't instanced, they are just available in the world (thus the need of having to join a session when playing online) so it's seamless, you can basically just go to one mission after another. Basically solo you're buddies are AI and you can give them orders and they can revive you when you are downed (once for every combat encounter). In co-op, the wheel for giving orders is used to communicate with teammates.

So far, the co-op experience has been fun when I briefly dabbled with it. Solo is also enjoyable but I feel like co-op is where this game would be better suited for especially when you are doing sync shots. It kind of has that Splinter Cell: Conviction/Blacklist co-op vibe when you get to pull off sync shots.

@tyn0mite: Also if I had to make a decision I might end up buying For Honor first since the budget after that would be saved for Mass Effect Andromeda since this game comes out in the same month. Want to spend more time with For Honor in the upcoming open beta next week, but I'd consider getting Wildlands eventually.

I have to say i like it. Already pre orderen so might not total subjective on the matter. One thing though, i am always bad flying planes with mouse and keyboard, so when i had to fly one to re over some supplies i inevitably crashed 5m arter the runway ended. Might have to switch to my xbox controller when flying planes, helicopter was easy though, kinda wish i could choose wether to fly myself or let the npc do it for me.

This game feels tacky. The gameplay feels cheap and the story seems underdeveloped. Everything feels like they just set a really low bar for polish.

The US military interventionist drug war setup leaves a bad taste in my mouth, especially if they're going to half-ass the plot this much. Come on Ubisoft, this is Bolivia, the country that killed Che. Give them some more credit and depth than just getting turning over to drug cartels.

And then the natural beauty of Bolivia makes me want a Dakar game. Someone go make a Motorstorm successor set in Bolivia.

It was pretty fun with friends. Not going to pick it up to play it singleplayer though. The gameplay and tactical opportunities are pretty interesting in coop. Nailing synchronized shots with teammates is super fun. At first some of the vehicle handling felt weird but it enables some crazy stuff when you get used to it. I hope the final game has more challenging/longer missions that pretty much require the use of smart tactics.

I would recommend if you have a group of motivated friends to play with.

Driving sucks but it seems like it will be a fun co-op game so I'll definitely get it

So yeah, this feels like a whole new game playing with friends, I'm definitely picking this up.

@nasher27: for anyone that doesnt know you can switch shoulders by tapping RB/R1... if you hold that button you get the orders wheel. Couldn't see it mentioned ingame on the controls anywhere

Does anyone have a key for me? Itching to try it out!

4 player Far Cry co-op depending on how thats sounds will determine weather Wildlands is a game worth playing for you. After feeling fatigue with Far Cry and Wildlands being sandwiched between Zelda & Mass Effect I'm gonna pass, beta was good fun though.

I liked what i saw. But i will likely wait to pick this up. Betweem feeling Farcry fatigue, and wanting to know if Mass Effect will be any good, i can wait.

I finished everything in the beta today. I'm totally on board (mission variety is still a concern). Problem is, this comes out between real big games for me. This would be great for the summer lull. I talked to some friends (the ones I would be playing with) and we're kind of in the "when we have time for this, it'll be cheap" camp.

This game is nothing more than just atrocious! And only baffled than the majority of the comments in this topic are not saying the same.

i'm coming from the point of view where i've enjoyed the heavier action focus that most of the tom clancy games have shifted toward in the past 10 years but i also grew up on the original Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon and enjoyed those for their punishing devotion to realism. Where the division was a 3rd person loot based cover shooter, this game, feels just like a Far Cry set in a tom clancy universe. The controls feel a little clunky (xbox One) and you didn't see that much of variety in the encounters at least what i played of the beta. I just kept thinking, if i wanted an open world military stealth/shooter i should just go play MGSV because that game had more personality and better mechanics. This game just kinda feels OK. That's based off of a 2-3 hours with the beta over the weekend and maybe it's better in co-op with friends (most things are) but it really didn't grab me. Presentation wise, it looks ok but not jaw dropping, the framerate felt a little chunky on the xbox one (like dips below 30 fps frequently). The sound is ok in parts but the voice acting is really bad. Enemy AI was also kinda awful too. I was using the drone to scout out an area when put the drone away 2 enemies had walked up behind me and didn't start shooting until i started walking again. :-/. None of the story stuff felt exceptional vs the side missions but the land mass of the map appears to be pretty huge. the beta featured 1 region that was several kilometers across and it looks like there may be 10+ more of those in the final game. driving vehicles was fun and they handle ok but not as good as a GTA or other open world games that are heavy on driving. I was really hoping this game would hook me and now it's just kinda one of those games i plan to play once it's on sale.

I played the beta for 30 mins, it looks great but i didn't like the gameplay very much.

Also, driving a bike off a cliff should kill you!

I "beat" the beta this weekend (completed the story missions available).

Ultimately, I enjoyed it. The game itself is, basically, MGS5, except instead of choosing missions from a menu, you just go to them, Far Cry-style. Everything else is almost identical to MGS5, except in every way it is similar to MGS5, it offers a little less than MGS5 did.

The controls are just about identical to MGS5, though there are far fewer ways to engage in CQC - your only option is to kill by pressing the melee button. You can't move bodies, either, and AI can 'find' bodies, so this is a little frustrating. Everything else - spotting, sneaking, shooting, movement - is virtually identical to MGS5, except movement feels a little looser. For those unfamiliar with MGS5, it's basically precise third-person action with stealth elements. Also for those unfamiliar with MGS5, go fucking play that game it has some of the best controls and gameplay in any action game ever made

The gameplay rhythm is this: go to a location to get 'intel' about the story missions. The location is typically an 'outpost' of sorts, where there are some buildings and some enemies in/around the buildings. From outside the area, spot as many dudes as you can with your binocs or your drone, which marks them (this is identical to Far Cry and MGS5). When you're ready to move in, you and your squad of 3 other players/AI (you are never alone, you always have this squad) move in however you please: snipe them from afar, run in guns blazing, etc. If you alert a dude, you have a small window in which to kill him before he radios for his buddies. If others are notified to your presence, they will move in on your location in a very intelligent, tactical manner, slowly and deliberately, and they may also call for reinforcements which will come from outside the outpost, in vehicles (you'll be notified if this happens). The story missions are the same, they are just more targeted with some scenario flourish, like a special area or special dudes to fight.

There is a HUUUUGE amount of character customization by way of loadout editing. There are toooons of clothing options and TOOONS of weapon options. You get weapons for your loadout by finding them in the environment in special weapons boxes (basically a collectible), and I think you get clothing options by leveling up and playing the story. Speaking of leveling up, there's a skill tree, which looks fairly promising: increase your sprint distance, the duration of your drone's battery life, your sniping stability, etc. It's not huge, but you'll spend most of your time focusing on getting new weapons.

Again, all of this is like Far Cry/MGS5, nothing new here. I did, however, have trouble with the co-op AI getting severely hung up on geometry in some spots. On the other hand, I played on Elite (second-hardest mode) and the AI only went 'down' once in one firefight. They generally hold their own, and they always revived me in time.

The last thing I want to say is how shitty the cars handle. All of them feel like you are driving a spear: the nose of the car is where all the energy/weight of the vehicle is. It doesn't feel right. They work, and you can drive them fine, but it feels fucked up.

Ultimately, the question you should ask yourself is this: does a notably crappier version of MGS5 with full story co-op sound cool? If so, this is a good game. I liked playing this game, but it has obvious, glaring problems.

This sums up alot of my experiance of the beta.

More details on my impressions are that is a very bugged beta. My vehicles rarely get up to speed for some reason the game fails to read I am holding the throttle all the way down. I started having to double tap for it to give me the speed of the car or bike. My friend was also having this issue, three of us played me and another friend would go 10mph with the same car, our third friend jumps in and he goes 50mph easily. So thats a bug.

The actual impression of the game is....I am worried. Aside from mission variety the game play is weird at almost every turn

, car driving is terrible, helicopters terrible, planes terrible. Shooting is ok yet feels like it is missing somthing, the missions go strange as soon as your spotted such as taking supplies I have had guys run up to a helicopter and fly out faster than my reticulated gets close to them. I mean teleport into the helicopter and the helicopter takes off at 60mph from stand still. again maybe just bugs due to Beta?

We did have fun yet every two minutes we found somthing to complain about and not feel fun anymore. Such as Guys with duel Uzi's sniping you out of a hilltop from half a mile away, my friend sniped a guy in a mounted machine gun post.....half the base exploded........ he sniped a guy in a machine gun post another time.....and my friend exploded......

Enemy Ai would see me despite being behind them and walking slowly. While other times I am half in their view crouched walking slowly and they dont see me....

These can all be fixed in the full game....yet.....I have no excitement after what feels like being bullshitted at every turn. Oh we also took 3 C4 to blow up a car.....that did not seem right. It was an assault car with a gatling gun yet....it was more an Humvee and yet 3 C4 till it was destroyed. I even threw a grenade at the feet of five guys and only one guy died.

The gatling guns seemed to not do anything much to cars....if it hit them at all same with the LMG which may be due to needing skill upgrades. The Iron Sights of guns have this weird option that if you press right on the D pad you move your face sliiiiggghhhtttly closer to or away from the iron sight.

It is a very very strange game.....which if this was a beta for a game in 6 months suuuuure ok fine lets see. yet in a months time? I dunno. even with is all fixed I am unsure as it feels like the same thing, sneak kill and sneak kill and sneak kill.....

I agree completely, had a similar experience. Didn't like it at first, but once I got going I couldn't put it down. I played with a friend (@cr0ssbow) over the weekend and we cleared the entire map. Trying to clear areas with pure stealth is super rewarding and I agree about doing the sync shots, makes you feel pretty cool. I also wish they would incentivize the stealth approach more with extra rewards (gear, exp, upgrades, etc.). Vehicle handling could use some work and I'm a little concerned about mission variety given Ubisoft's previous games. The overall map looked pretty big so I'm hoping the other areas will provide some new scenery and more challenging missions.

The stealth is a bit too loose for that kind of reward structure. The ideal would be to insensitivity stealth with encounters that heavily punish a run and gun approach. I think that's where the game is going and I hope they can deliver. What platform do you guys play on? I'm probably not going to pick it up at launch with like 5 other very interesting games coming out in the same month but I was looking for people to team up when I get it later this year.