Ghost Recon Breakpoint Is Far From Saving

As a someone who’s been playing Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon since the first iteration on the PC way back in 2001, I feel a considerable connection to this franchise. Some of my fondest memories hearken back to playing through the competitive multiplayer with a squad of friends and hearing our commander say “Welcome to Tblisi, gentlemen” at the mission briefing screen. We made a pseudo clan called Canadian Special Forces (or CSF) for short, an acronym that still graces many of my online handles.

Despite this long lived attachment, I fully understand and accept that this franchise has changed – arguably more than any of the other Tom Clancy titles. Despite its surprisingly successful migration to an online competitive focused game, Rainbow Six is still a highly tactical and unmistakably punishing first person shooter experience. While under a rather lengthy hiatus (for UbiSoft standards), Splinter Cell has remained the slow and slinky solo stealth game of the Clancy family. The Division, while only two installments deep, has stuck to its guns as being a cover based looter shooter, with less of a focus on tactics, and more of a focus on arsenal.

Ghost Recon, on the other hand, has experimented with a number of different mechanics and play styles during its almost two decade long life span. Ghost Recon started from the first person perspective but quickly moved to third person with the 2004 follow up to the original. Advanced Warfighter toyed with a more linear approach to level design and futuristic weapons to tactically take down enemies with your squad. In 2017, Wildlands brought Ghost Recon to the open world and offered players a massive South American playground to take down a Bolivian drug cartel.

While the franchise has undoubtedly had a few outfit changes over the past twenty years, UbiSoft has fundamentally changed the formula for the worse. In the pursuit of fully transforming Breakpoint into a game as a service, this is the first entry in the franchise that has completely lost what Ghost Recon is all about. Breakpoint clumsily attempts to morph Ghost Recon from a tactical squad based stealth shooter into a complete mess of modern action oriented shooter tropes. And sadly, it’s far from saving.

To be fair, there are some positives that are worth noting with Breakpoint. Jon Bernthal is fantastic. While the script and story that he has to work with is average at best, Bernthal brings to life the character of Cole D. Walker in a way we’ve never seen in a Tom Clancy game. He’s equal parts captivating and terrifying and perfectly the exudes the persona of a Ghost gone bad. Further to this, the fictional open world of Auroa is one of the best that UbiSoft has ever produced. The landscape is full of character with technologically advanced infrastructure clashing with intimidating terrain and a mysterious ancient civilization.

That’s unfortunately where the positives end. Several reviewers have noted Breakpoint‘s insistence on mashing together all of UbiSoft’s open world conventions from the likes of Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed. This is largely the case and, unfortunately, none of these things are done well. The looting system and gear level is ripped straight from The Division but with what seems like less than half of the arsenal of different weapons. Too often you’ll receive the same assault rifle or handgun that you’ve already used half a dozen times before. However, having a higher score and additional passive abilities inexplicably make it better – but doesn’t change the experience of actually using that weapon.

Crafting is shoe horned in because, well, we need to have crafting, right? You’ll pick up several crafting ingredients as you travel the world and pillage enemies. Given that any number of plants you pick up can be used to craft rations and healing syringes, it’s completely inconsequential which ingredient you actually throw into the recipe. Further to that, many of the equipment pieces that can be crafted are much easier to just purchase. The in game currency, known as Skell credits, is plentiful – largely negating any need to craft equipment at all.

But what robs Breakpoint of any discernible resemblance to what set Ghost Recon apart is the mission structure. In previous iterations, your squad of Ghosts was almost always encouraged to keep things slow and silent. Enemy camps were carefully vetted using scopes, binoculars, and, more recently, drones. This was all done to expertly formulate a plan of attack and complete the objective without anyone who was lucky enough to be left alive knowing you were there. Far too often in Breakpoint it seems like the player is encouraged to go guns blazing from the start. This happens by way of peppering enemy bases with loot chests. In order to elevate your gear level as high as possible (the ultimate measure of success in Breakpoint), you’re encouraged to collect as much gear as possible. Easiest way to do this? Kill everyone. While it is possible to do this methodically, the game makes it far too easy to just go guns blazing to ensure each and every chest is open.

One of the new enemy types in the game are massive tank like drones known as Behemoths. Many of these are found patrolling a secluded area, but others are found supporting enemy troops in bases and block your objective. There is no stealth option with Behemoths and these bullet sponges felt like they were also awkwardly ripped straight from The Division.

Two weeks ago, UbiSoft head Yves Guillemot issued a candid press release. In this statement, Guillemot was forthcoming in admitting that Ghost Recon Breakpoint was not up to the company’s lofty standards, both from a sales and quality perspective. Guillemot vowed that the development team was hard at work at fixing the game and laid out a plan to ensure future titles were not released in the same state. While this honesty should be appreciated by gamers, it unfortunately will not fix Ghost Recon Breakpoint. Technical issues will be addressed, quality of life and connectivity will be improved. But the fundamental gameplay flaws that are baked into this game cannot be recovered from.

There is fun to be had in Breakpoint. Teaming up with coop partners to take down Sentinel and Wolf soldiers is as fun as it was in Wildlands, even without the need for a strategic and tactical approach. But this is not Ghost Recon, and no patch or update can turn this into Ghost Recon. And chances are, if you do decide to play this game, you’ll spend most of your time thinking of the better games like Destiny and The Division that Breakpoint tries so hard to emulate.