Three Reasons to Love Future Soldier's Multiplayer

Great though many of its competitors may be, few shooters think about combat as intelligently as Ghost Recon.



Stealth, Tactics, and Communication Matter


Future Soldier distinguishes itself with its pace. Soldiers here are efficient and fast. They bring a speed to stealth
that contributes to the competitive online modes in a major way. Scouts
with invisibility camouflage can slip behind enemy lines, cut through
their ranks, and get out without ever having been spotted. Hiding (not
just behind cover but in trees, around corners, and out of the way) is
the most efficient way of eliminating the opposition.


Storming at the other team using light machine-guns certainly gets the
job done, but a tactical team will undoubtedly come out on top. Hasty
players leave themselves open to slower players precise methods. Those
brash, thoughtless types will find themselves not only dead, but
contributing to their team's failure. Running-and-gunning means you're
not considering potential threats like stun mines, which the opposition
uses for more than just incapacitating guys. If you stun someone, you
can "data hack" their kit before killing them. This exposes the exact
location of everybody on the other team. Oops.


In theory, players could go rogue, abandon their team, and clean up all the kills as a lone wolf. This is a terrible
plan. Bullets kill people, and in Ghost Recon they kill people quite
quickly. If a team doesn't know where someone is, they can't revive a
downed ally, protect their flank, or support them in combat. Playing as
anything but a talkative, coordinated team is a risky proposition that
will, in all likelihood, result in a loss.




"Maybe if I stay here nobody will even notice me."




Objective-Based Adversarial Multiplayer

Every mode in Future Soldier, even the standard deathmatch, hinges on
some sort of objective. This is multiplayer with a purpose. Players
dedicate as much time to completing tasks as they do drilling holes in
others' faces. Conflict, the standard red vs. blue competitive mode,
tasks players with capturing a series of control points. Having an
Engineer cover your back with a deployable turret, or dropping a camera
that sees through cover, goes a long way to making sure you secure a
spot.


Decoy plays similar, although it's a little more goal-oriented. The
attacking team needs to figure out which of three potential command
posts is the one they're looking for. When they've exhausted or avoided
the decoys, they make the final push to another control point. Kills
don't mean anything to the attacking team's score. If you don't capture,
you don't win, even if your K/D ration is killing it on the
leaderboard.


Saboteur places a neutral bomb in the middle of a lengthy map. Teams
play a violent version of tug-of-war as they kill for control. The first
team to lug the heavy briefcase to the enemy HQ and detonate it takes
the win. Bomb-carriers slow down and, short of briefcase-based stealth
kills, can only use their secondary weapon to defend themselves. Again,
teams have to watch out for each other. The guys and girls who stay
together keep control. You flat-out won't win on your own here, and
coordinating ambushes can give your team a huge time advantage.




The guy on the left is data hacking. His guys have his back. Teamwork!




Siege Mode

Few games outside Counter-Strike and SOCOM have the stones to keep dead
players down, never mind making them appreciate their limited life.
Siege, a callback to a classic Ghost Recon multiplayer mode, gives each
player just one chance to take out the other team. When a Rifleman fills
your chest with lead, or a Scout cuts your throat, you're done. No
respawn. In a game already so heavily reliant on careful play, Siege
really makes that one life feel valuable. Taking someone down with you
might help, but it never feels like enough.