It’s a shame, isn’t it? Ubisoft releases Ghost Recon Breakpoint with a whole heap of hype behind it. All the hype can be really good, or really bad for you. Turns out, it didn’t work out too well for Ubisoft. The majority of fans are pissed to say the least; with a very impressive 2.2 user score on Metacritic, Ubisoft definitely has their work cut out for them to get this game back on track. If there is one company who can turn the ship around though, it is Ubisoft.
They have proven this multiple times with For Honor, R6 Siege and The Division. All of these games came out with lukewarm or worse reviews, only to be turned around with impressive updates and dlc (downloadable content) that has kept players around to this day. So when Ubisoft does so many things right in a row, why or how, could they butcher a sure fire sequel to Ghost Recon Wildlands?
Ubisoft’s 2017 Ghost Recon Wildlands was quite a sleeper hit. Fans were skeptical upon the first few trailers and gameplay of Wildlands, the worry was will this game deviate too much from the older Ghost Recon games? Turns out, it was much different than past games in the series. Wildlands was much more open, with a massive sandbox to play in and Ubisoft’s signature open world mechanics. The game also had consistent support and content added in to make the game live on much longer than the release. It even had a crossover event with the Predator, I can always get behind funky crossovers like that. Before most of this was even added, Wildlands was still the best selling game of the year before Call of Duty was released again. That’s mighty impressive for a game with so much questions before it even launched. When Ubisoft announced its sequel, Ghost Recon Breakpoint, the general idea was that it would have simple mechanics, a fun open world sandbox and outposts to take out as far as the eye can see. What Ubisoft released in October 2019 was far less simple.
Ghost Recon Breakpoint for all intents and purposes is a hot mess. It isn’t all bad now, but it seems to be a game that was not planned with all people on the same page. They tried to make the jump to a more “games of service” approach. Which makes sense in a modern setting, there is only one problem with this, Ubisoft already has the Division 2. They tried taking what they did with Wildlands and merge it into what The Division 2 has already become. This is further reinforced by Breakpoint’s constant push to get you to play with other people. If we wanted hub areas filled with other players, we would go play the Division. Some series are better off sticking to what they are good at. Even though Wildlands did add co-op throughout the entire game and people loved it, the next logical step is not to throw in a Destiny like curveball. It is widely known that every game does not need to become a game of service, just look at Fallout 76, that is a developer’s worst nightmare. Another crime that I can’t fail to point out, is their under usage of John Bernthal, this is appalling to a huge fan of his such as myself. He’s like Keanu Reeves, if Keanu was absolutely terrifying when he acted. The stories few shining moments were mostly scenes with him in it, which is a crutch that does not work out in a 30 hour long video game.
John Bernthal fan or not, it’s safe to say Breakpoint missed the mark, trying to evolve into something it wasn’t meant to be. While the gameplay is still very solid, and the stealth moments aren’t matched by many other games, that fails to make up for the games other shortcomings. Ubisoft knows this is the case which is why they released information that Breakpoint was not meeting their expectations, financially and critically. They have said that they are fully committed to listening to the fans and making the game better on all fronts, and I believe them. They have proven they are capable of this as I mentioned in the opening paragraph. Now, let this be a lesson to Ubisoft; it is better to start off strong than to have to dig yourself out of a hole. While I’m confident that they can come out of this hole, I can’t help but to think it would be much easier to fix before release. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel when you are making another entry in a series, sometimes, simplicity is much more effective. The majority of us loved Wildlands, and in due time I think we should give Breakpoint another shot, Ubisoft has earned that courtesy at the least.
