Ghost Recon Breakpoint Preview – Metal Gear 5 Meets Far Cry

I know its easy to get burnt out from open-world games, especially after spending hours playing Far Cry 5. By design, these games seem to purposely show you what’s around you, so you always feel the need to explore. What’s sad about all of this is that I don’t seem to have control over my need to gather every locked box and clear every outpost, even if I’m not required to. I guess it says a lot about my self-control.

Anyway, Ubisoft is taking on the open the open-world format once again to tell a new Tom Clancy story in Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint. The game focuses heavily on its characters and setting while inserting the player into a dramatic and epic adventure. What I found in my time during the online Beta weekend is that this game is fun with friends and offers a lot in terms of overall content that will surely satisfy the “collect everything” obsessors out there.  However, there were a few kinks here and there that I hope are ironed over by the time the game launches.

Playing Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint on PlayStation 4, I jumped right into the beginning of the campaign as my squad headed out to investing Skell Technology, a research facility that resides on a secluded island. However, things don’t go so smoothly as each helicopter is shot down and I awaken next to a crash site. After searching for survivors, I discovered that the person behind this attack is former Ghost Cole D. Walker, who now leads a team known as the “Wolves”.

Exploring the island in the beta was full of surprises. I would come across random camps or small towns with friendlies who are being controlled by the Wolves. While it was possible to run and gun through these portions, I felt more comfortable taking the stealth approach. Each style of gameplay is separated into four classes, Assualt, Sharpshooter, Panther, and Engineer. Each class fills a crucial role within a team, but it’s also possible to create a character with all-around balanced stats. Skill points are also gained during gameplay that can be used to further customize your characters and make them fit more to your playstyle with added abilities and features.

I did have fun exploring the island on my own, but I felt the game didn’t truly grab my attention until I played with a group of people. Here, we could work together to infiltrate basses and use our skills to take out enemies. Players could flank and position themselves around groups of enemies as other created a diversion. Ultimately though, we were creating our own fun within the game’s world, which was a nice experience and made it all feel unique.

Our tactics of overrunning enemy camps always seemed to play out rather nicely, but I did feel a little too powerful in the beta. Hopefully, I’ll get to explore harder difficulties to make the AI a little more capable of taking me out. With that said, I did enjoy how the AI conversed with each other about various things. Sure it made it easier to find them, but it also helped with the immersion.

Exploring intel in the game is an interesting feature where players can hack devices or question friendlies to get information on weapons, materials, and other useful items. Taking the time to look into these small side-missions felt rewarding and almost always led to acquiring new intel or additional side-missions.

Each gun that I used in the game felt good to handle. Ubisoft knows exactly what they are doing in this department. The sound in the game is also expertly done to make each weapon a little more unique when firing. I also liked the weapon upgrade system that allowed me to replace things like grips and sites on weapons to make them more powerful.

The issues in the game stem from graphical problems with the textures and AI, both friendly and hostile, doing some weird things. You’ll randomly see them walking through each other, holding items that aren’t there, or even sitting on each other. Hopefully, this stuff gets patched out, but there was also the occasional hidden object that made crawling look strange.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint’s stealth elements are what have me intrigued in this new adventure. The amount of teamwork and individuality that the game provides is what is ultimately keeping it on my radar. It doesn’t hurt that the campaign offers enough that I want to see these missions through until the end. I can only hope that some of the glitches and unimpressive enemy AI gets improved by the launch of the game along with some a decent PvP player mode (which I wasn’t able to play in the best) because that is what will change this game from being moderately good to great.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint is coming to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on October 4.