So I managed to solo Guerilla Mode (tips & strats)

[Fat_Pie123]

Yeah, so I'm one of those insane people who did this the hard way. This isn't a flex; in fact, it feels more like an admission of guilt. Part of me felt driven to finish this mode on my own purely as a "fuck you" to the people who made it. It so clearly wasn't designed to be played solo that I'm surprised they even let you. Of course, this sort of thing shouldn't even be in the game to begin with. I thought that Ghost Recon was supposed to be about stealth and surprise, not going Rambo. Hence the word "Ghost" in the title. But I digress. Apologies for the upcoming wall of text; I could probably write a shorter guide, but once I start I get too lazy to stop.

 

I actually consider myself to be a fairly average player when it comes to shooters (you should see my KD ratio in Doom), and I believe that if I can do something, then anyone can. I wanted to let people know firstly that this is very tough (obviously), but also doable with enough time, patience and the right strategies. The online for GRFS will be closing soon, so the only way to do this in future will either be solo or split-screen with a friend (or two, or three). Thankfully, local multiplayer is at least available for this mode, instead of being "online only", so you can just plug in another controller and play. I have no idea why being able to play with a friend on just one console was suddenly declared verboten, but when it comes to GRFS, the devs made at least one good call (meaning that Ubisoft was probably opposed to it).

 

I tried to hook up with someone on PSN to make this easier, but it didn't work, because this is a Ubisoft game after all. Unfortunately, there aren't even any guides or videos from people who have done this solo on Youtube, which is unusual; there's some limited footage of multiplayer teams making it to wave 50, but the even fewer solo players never get anywhere near the end before giving up (wave 13 was the highest I could find). If there is such a video, I wasn't able to find it, or it was removed some time ago, but there's a general paucity of good guides for this mode, which initially led me to believe that maybe it just wasn't possible to do this solo. However, perseverance proved me wrong.

 

I hate to say it, but there are no real secrets or flawless methods. You just have to be quick, calm, and, in some cases, lucky. I dislike saying that because it's useless advice, but that's just the way this awful mode was designed. Sometimes it comes down to spawn patterns, or enemies hesitating before they blow you away, or opponents not throwing an incendiary grenade into your camping spot.

 

Obviously this was done on Recruit difficulty, which might as well be Veteran for all the difference it makes. This isn't Call of Duty, where you can tank damage on that difficulty level. Two or three hits and you're dead. This is how it should be in a Ghost Recon game, but the series was clearly not designed for this kind of horde gameplay; it's just painful. Enemies can take several bursts of gunfire to go down too, especially on later waves which contain harder enemies, unless you hit them with a headshot.

 

Firstly, I did this on Shanty Town. I know that sounds crazy, since it's such an open area, but all of the other maps have HQs which are far too large to cover on your own. Mansion does have a decent choke point on the stairs, but I found it to be far too exposed. On ST, the rooms are small, and there's cover in the centre. This is the basic strat; camp in the middle, pick off any enemies you can from a distance, melee the chargers and shield enemies. The melee is quite OP; a one-hit kill no matter what (even against shielded enemies), plus the animation gives you some invincibility frames. However, you need to be careful; if enemies are grouped together you can chain melees, but if they're apart, the dreadful camera will make it difficult to reorient yourself, especially when you're indoors. You should also prioritise shielded enemies. If you melee a regular soldier in front of a shielded one, it's pretty much an instant death sentence.

 

The AI has two strategies: firing at a distance and bum rushing. You don't really need to worry about snipers or RPG enemies, since they can't hit you in the locations I've highlighted and can be taken out after the enemies on the ground are dead; I was never killed by one during my entire run. During the bum rush you'll want to mix melee with blind firing. Then switch to picking off the static targets further away. When it gets down to the final few enemies of a wave, if they're on the ground, they always elect to charge in, so you can make short work of them with melee. Enemies never seem to charge in numbers greater than two or three, and many times they'll come solo.

 

My weapons of choice were LMGs, due to the high ammo and punching power. Firing through walls is very effective, and you do have limited auto-aim, although you shouldn't rely on this too much. I didn't find any of the streak bonuses to be terribly effective, and usually I was dying too much to get very many of them anyway. Radar is useful but short-lived, the missiles are OK for clearing a few enemies, the turrets can be useful for a short period depending on where they're placed. Airstrike is great, but you'll want to save it for when you're truly stuck, because the higher you go, the less likely it is you'll be getting another. The only one I didn't try was invisibility; maybe it's useful, maybe not.

 

You're looking at a solid chunk of time if you try to do this in one sitting, probably six to eight hours at least, which I don't recommend. This will rapidly lead to frustration, which leads to stupid mistakes, which leads to death, which leads to more frustration, and so on. If you leave and come back, you lose any bonuses and weapons you had. This sounds awful, and it is, but to be honest, I didn't find it to be that bad. You'll be able to get the LMGs back after a few rounds, and the starting weapons aren't totally useless. If you do decide to take a break, try to do so at the beginning of a wave set (10, 20, 30, 40). That way you'll have a better chance to build up supplies, weapons and streak bonuses.

 

Thankfully, equipment can be stacked over time; anything you don't use can be added to at the end of a round, so you can end up with a load of gear. Sensor grenades are vital. These things will save your life. Knowing where enemies are is the key to beating them. You'll want to throw them near to you so you can see who's trying to sneak up on you. Sadly, these stop working after wave 40, when invisible enemies start spawning and the fun really starts. Frag grenades can also be useful against multiple foes, especially shield enemies. I didn't bother with incendiaries. Claymores can be useful to cover blind spots and thin the herd initially, but planting them during a wave is highly dangerous, and you can easily get blown up if you're too close to one and an enemy runs into it. The drone can be useful for spotting snipers or RPG enemies on rooftops towards the end of a wave, but during the main rush it'll just get shot down (although it can sometimes distract enemies, who'll fire at it rather than you). It can also be used to pick out the odd straggler in cover. Don't go hunting for enemies unless you have to though; let them come to you. On one wave, the final enemy glitched out, and I had to go find him, but this was an isolated case.

 

You'll alternate between two HQs every 10 waves, both of which have positives and negatives. The first one is closest to the supply drop, so it's easier to rearm. However, there's a lot more space to cover in the HQ, and nowhere to camp without your rear being exposed. You'll want to set up behind the boxes in the middle of the room, but the major areas to watch are behind you on the left and right. Enemies will sneak up on you through these routes. If enemies come in through the front two passageways to the east (the ones nearest to the supply drop), they're easy enough to kill, since they run to the middle of the room and then pause for a short period, giving you a change to blow them away. Even if you're facing away from the front entrances, you can always tell when enemies have breached the room because the floor will change colour from blue to orange. You can shoot or leap over the boxes to melee soldiers in front, then rush back to cover, which is far more effective than it should be.

 

The second HQ is further away from the supply drop, but is much easier to cover. For this one, you don't want to sit inside the HQ, but instead camp in the area just behind it. There's a house with a small flight of steps leading up. You want to plant yourself on the right side of this location (not the left, as enemies will be able to hit you from the right). From this spot, no one can sneak up behind you or hit you as long as you're in cover, and enemies will stream towards you from the left, right, and center, all of which have mostly clear fields of fire. The disadvantage is that you're not actually inside the HQ, so you need to watch out for enemies taking it over. However, as luck would have it, the roof of this HQ is damaged; throwing a frag grenade on top of it will clear out any enemies inside most of the time. You can also try shooting the ones who make it inside; if they hide behind one of the walls, you can just shoot through it. However, if they take cover behind the boxes in the middle of the room (as they have a tendency to do), you won't be able to shoot through it (I guess the boxes are bulletproof or something). In that case, you can wait for the enemy to pop out, but you better nail him, because you won't get a second chance. Don't charge and melee unless you're sure no one else is around, or you'll get clipped. The tree covering the alleyway next to the HQ can also be shot through, as can the pillar which is beside you (it partially blocks your view, but might as well not be there, since you can shoot right through it), and this is an easy way to kill multiple enemies who are charging. Throwing grenades to the left of this position isn't feasible though, as the pillar blocks the space, so only throw grenades to your right from here. Sometimes a sniper or RPG can appear on the roof opposite you, but they're easy to kill; if they spawn on the roof behind you, they may fire at you, but they can't hit you.

 

Be warned: since this game is very glitchy, enemies can sometimes clip through walls. Several times I had an enemy go through the barrier by my hiding spot and end up beside me. However, in this case it's easy to melee them. The trouble you'll have is when multiple shielded enemies start showing up after wave 30; even if you melee one, the next will pretty much instakill you. The only solution is to either throw grenades at them as they advance (thankfully they're very slow), or try to get them bunched up around your hiding spot and pray you can melee them all in time, but this is risky and inconsistent. Meleeing around corners can also be dangerous; you want to wait until they're as close as possible, but not so close that they can shoot you dead; the hit detection for the melee seemed a little off sometimes, and this got me killed more than once. The other issue is incendiary grenades. If the enemy manages to throw one into your spot, it's game over. This only happened to me twice however, and I'm not sure it wasn't just a lucky throw, because the AI is dead stupid for the most part. Mostly they throw smoke grenades, but sometimes you may get a flash or frag. If you're blinded, you're pretty much fucked, but frags are easy enough to avoid. Honestly, there wasn't a lot of grenade spam to deal with in my case, and it was far less awful than I had heard.

 

Wave 39 is particularly awful, but I managed to make it to wave 43 entirely solo. Sadly, I hit a brick wall here, and had to alter my tactics as a result. You can't fight what you can't see, and invisible enemies are just bullshit (although hitting them with gunfire does disable the effect, and you can usually see them fairly easily when they're moving). I had a bunch of claymores, but these don't even kill enemies on wave 40, they merely injure them, which is also bullshit (it's a claymore, FFS). In desperation, I decided to add a second controller (but still playing on my own, just to be clear), and this is what cracked it for me. You'd think that juggling two controllers would be even harder, practically impossible even, but it isn't; it is hard, don't get me wrong, but not totally undoable. I had my second guy lie prone between the boxes and the wall (you want to make sure he's not too exposed, but not too close to the boxes, otherwise you can't hide behind them) covering the open space on the lower right while I covered the other spaces. If an enemy came up to that lower right spot, I could shoot him with the second controller or throw grenades. Again, the shield guys are the major problem, but thankfully their shields are visible, and you can usually see them coming from a mile away. The trick is to try to get them one at a time, and use your primary character as a melee machine. If you are downed, you can use the second character to revive, which is very likely to happen. Your characters will also communicate like they do in the main game, and while this isn't extremely useful, the dialogue can give you a general idea of where the enemies are coming from; if you get lucky, a few of them may even end up being highlighted in red, which makes them easy to take out. It can get extremely chaotic, and in some cases I'm sure I just got lucky, but this was the only way I was able to make it through.

 

The only other enemy I haven't covered are the vehicles, but these are easy. Armoured cars only spawn one at a time towards the end of a wave set (10, 20, 30 40, 50), circle around the HQ in a very obvious loop and can be taken out with LMG fire or grenades (I didn't bother with the grenade launcher), as can the helicopter, which only spawns on wave 50. The final wave is actually insultingly easy compared to the previous ones, because there are no shield enemies (thank Jeebus), and the helicopter is so easy to avoid it's almost funny.

 

So yeah, that's basically how I did it. If you can find someone else to do this with you, it will be far less painful; this is for those who are truly out of luck on that score, and to let you know that it can be done. I'm sorry this guide couldn't be more useful; I wish I could reveal some great consistent strat, some perfect hiding place or glitch, but I can't. All I can do is tell you what worked for me, and wish you luck.

 

TL;DR: camp, melee, add second controller towards end, don't die.

Edited July 5, 2023 by Fat_Pie123
Added info

[Ozora]

Man, what an honest review/walkthrough of this mode. 
I haven't done it yet but I'm definitely not doing it solo now that I've read what you've been through, lol.

I wish I could've helped you but I salute your resolve to do it solo.