Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six team up for Wildlands Special Operation 2

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Last week, Ubisoft teased a Ghost Recon Wildlands crossover with Rainbow Six Siege coming with the launch of Special Operation 2, the second of four free updates planned for Wildlands' Year 2. Today it revealed which Rainbow Six operators will be joining the party in Bolivia: The Navy SEAL Valkyrie, GIGN's Twitch, and Caveira of BOPE, who's gone off the grid and on a homicidal rampage.

Valkyrie, you see, is an old friend of Karen Bowman, the CIA shot-caller working with Ghost Recon in its war against the Santa Blanca Cartel. So when Caveira goes missing in Bolivia, she enlists their aid to join her and Twitch in the search. There is a narrative to untangle—"The Ghosts will follow a trail of clues, to learn more about why Caveira is in Bolivia, and also about her troubled past"—but the real attraction for most players will be the practical rewards: Finishing the two-part Operation Archangel PvE mission before August 14 will get you Caveira's gloves, which enable her "iconic" CQC move and automatically unlocks the positions of all enemies in the area when equipped.

There's also a Rainbow Six Gear Pack on the way that will feature new cosmetics and weapons including Caveira's also-"iconic" Luison pistol, an HK416 assault rifle, and headgear inspired by Valkyrie and Twitch. The Ghost War PvP mode is getting two new classes, Toxic and Surgeon, modeled after Smoke and Doc from Rainbow Six Siege, plus two new maps called Factory and Checkpoint, and a new Spectate feature. On the PvE side, the new Ghost mode will dramatically ramp up the difficulty and also offer a permadeath option.

I've killed a lot of people in Bolivia (like, a lot of people), including a few civilians (sorry about that), but even with that big body count behind me, there's something really uncomfortable about Caveira's presentation in this trailer. It's one thing to shoot up guys who are shooting back at you, but it's something else entirely to tie one of them to a chair and cut him until he talks. And for the character to say it's "fun" is even more off-putting: The torture killing of DEA agent Ricky Sandoval is one of the events that brought the Ghost team to Bolivia to topple the Santa Blancas, but I bet Caveira won't even have to turn in her Good Guy Superteam membership card.

Ghost Recon Wildlands Special Operation 2 will be available to owners of the Year 2 pass on July 24, and everyone else on July 31.

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.