When you hear the description “modern military shooter” there are probably a lot of things that come to mind. You probably think of dingy brown-and-grey corridors posing as battlefields, explosive set-pieces which may as well be cutscenes, and teenagers screaming racial slurs into their microphones while you try to play online. While Ghost Recon: Future Soldier obviously leans more towards the Call of Duties and Battlefields than its predecessors, it also manages to distance itself from a lot of the tropes that have caused shooters to stagnate recently. Just as third-person is to first-person, think of Future Soldier as a different perspective on the concept of 21st century gunplay.

While Ubisoft has seemingly beaten Black Ops II to the punch and sent its franchise into the future, the title of the newest Ghost Recon is mostly a misnomer. The game ostensibly takes place in the future, but you’d be hard pressed to find evidence of that in the game world, and most (if not all) of the technology present is extant in some form as of this writing. Perhaps the titular “Future Soldier,” is more of an ideal, signifying a departure from the old, rote firefights that used to characterize warfare, whether real or digital.

Behold! Slightly-less-visibility cloaks.

The game’s campaign follows a four-man team of “ghosts,” or special operatives on the trail of bad guys involved in the manufacturing and distribution of weaponry. Their journey takes them from the jungles of South America, through the shantytowns of Africa, and to the barren tundras of Russia, representing a wide range of scenery and mission types. However, the plot is almost a parody of itself, invoking every cliché you could imagine, whether it be America saving the day or the gaming industry’s strange recent fascination with Russia. There’s even one scene lifted almost directly from Modern Warfare 3, although, to its credit, it is both more visceral and less manipulative here.

There are no two ways about it: the story is a waste. Fortunately, the campaign itself is saved by some very clever structure, a fair amount of variety, and the simplicity of satisfying gameplay. Put simply, each of the early missions serve as a tutorial for a piece of technology in your expanding arsenal, as the game teaches you to be a better player. First you learn how to use drones to scout the terrain ahead of you, then you practice synchronizing shots with your team to take down whole patrols silently, before you’re given the controls to a BigDog. The build-up is expertly crafted, until you’re finally familiar with the broad range of gadgets that set the game apart from most other shooters on the market. There is even a clever pay-off to the end of this learning curve, but I won’t spoil it here.

Trillions of dollars in military spending and we can't even get a color camera.

If a game can be said to be “technology porn” then Future Soldier is an orgy. However, even when the game loads you down with the GDP of a small nation in weaponry, don’t expect to just go Rambo on anything in your path. Like the Ghost Recons of old, this newest iteration is primarily about stealth, and getting into a protracted firefight means you did something wrong. In fact, there are large swaths of the game which don’t require you to fire a single shot, and quite a few in which alerting the enemy to your presence results in instant failure. While most big budget shooters throw in a token stealth segment, Future Soldier is built around the concept, and plays all the better for it.

One of the downsides of the rise of the set-piece in modern games is that everyone will have the same memories of most titles. Scripted sequences and quick-time events may allow for a cinematic experience, but they don’t lend themselves well to feelings of personal achievement. GR:FS has a few contractually obligated watercooler moments, but it is at its best when it lets you figure out how to deal with a situation. There’s nothing more satisfying than planning and successfully executing a stealthy assault on a large, entrenched enemy force. And thanks to the obscene arsenal provided to you by American taxpayers, you can do so in incredible style.