About two years after the release of Wildlands, Ubisoft publishes a new chapter of the successful franchise Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Breakpoint. As the French publisher had widely announced in the marketing campaign, the title in question aimed to return to the "origins of the saga", rediscovering its roots. How? With new game mechanics, new gameplay solutions and, above all with a survival element not present in the previous chapter.
In the various presentation trailers, we have been able to understand how much Ubisoft aimed at Ghost Recon Breakpoint, so much so that it took advantage of the performance (and face) of Jon Bernthal as the main antagonist of our adventure in the lands of Auroa.
After having explored the game map far and wide, after having carried out a substantial number of missions (main and secondary) and, above all, after firing a sufficient number of bullets, we have had the opportunity to create a well-defined opinion on Breakpoint, which we will try to explain to you in the most detailed way possible in the body of our review.
Ghost Recon Breakpoint review: technological drift
Year 2023. We are at Auroa, an island in the Pacific Ocean that has become a real technological utopia and which, for a few days, has abruptly and inexplicably interrupted communications with the outside world. The US government, concerned by the situation, sent a team of around 30 to the scene Ghost, highly trained elite soldiers, to understand what actually happened.
Not even the time to arrive that our heroes' mission takes a terrible blow. The helicopters carrying the military are attacked by a mysterious entity, crashing into the island and, in fact, decimating our platoon. After the introductory cutscene, the player will find himself in the role of the colonel Antony “Nomad” Perryman, one of the few surviving Ghosts, who will have the thankless task of completing the mission, as well as tracking down other surviving soldiers.
After the short tutorial, based on learning fundamental mechanics such as wound care and environmental camouflage, the picture of the situation becomes clearer. Skell Technology, the visionary high-tech firm, owner of Auroa, was attacked by a para-military organization, called the "Wolves", with Cole D. Walker, a former Ghost who, in fact, took control of Skell machinery and technology, starting to produce military drones, becoming a danger to all the world's democracies.
How to survive in a hostile environment?
The first lesson we will have to learn will be this: how to survive alone on an island teeming with enemy soldiers? First, we will have to immediately heal any wounds our hero might suffer. This is the first novelty of Ghost Recon Breakpoint: underestimating injuries and fractures will mean encountering less and less mobility, up to the inability to use any weapon, if not the one from the side.
Secondly, just as the name of our army corps says, we will have to become invisible to the many eyes of our enemy, and what has just been said can be achieved in two ways: planning and camouflage.
Under the first aspect, we will have to make use of all the means at our disposal (viewfinders, binoculars e drone) to understand the numerical consistency of our opponent, and carefully plan every single step. Unlike what we saw in Wildlands, we will not have other companions controlled by artificial intelligence; we will therefore have to learn to rely only on our own strengths or, as we will see later, on those of our trusted "online companions".
As for camouflage, it will be the key element of our strategies. Catching the enemy with surprises, hitting him when he least expects it, will not always be an easy task, especially due to the many drones that could signal our presence. For this very reason, the environmental camouflage, which will make us one with the surrounding environment, hiding us even from the closest glances.
A formula halfway between old and new
Although Ubisoft announced that Breakpoint would be a very different title from Wildlands, there is no shortage of touchpoints. First, we will find ourselves catapulted into one very large map, even bigger (albeit with fewer biomes) and packed with activities to do. Between main missions, side quests, factions to help and chests to find, players will be busy for around 40 hours, the minimum allowed to complete the last chapter of Ghost Recon.
The absence of companions guided by artificial intelligence will still make it possible to complete the title even in single player, but the game difficulty will increase significantly. However, rest assured: completing Breakpoint will never, ever prove to be a difficult task. Compared to Wildlands, gunplay has been significantly implemented, even if, in this respect, the many glitches we encountered, and which we will talk about shortly, weigh heavily.
Another novelty, which breaks with the recent past of the franchise, is the inclusion of one skill tree articulated, and capable of differentiating the gameplay. From the very first bars of the game, we will find each other four classes to choose from: Assault, Panther, Field Medic and Marksman. Depending on how we decide to invest the skill points obtained, we will be able to unlock active and passive skills, capable of guaranteeing us different approaches to the game.
The skill points in question can be obtained both by leveling up and with PvP which, at present, offers us only two modes: a deathmatch with a map that shrinks with the passage of time (elimination), And Sabotage, in which one team will have to place a bomb and protect it from the other team, which will have to defuse it instead.
The sore points: graphics and technical sector
Unfortunately, several aspects of Ghost Recon Breakpoint haven't convinced us, and almost all of them reside in decidedly fluctuating technical sector of the Ubisoft title. Our protagonist, after having been "shaped" by an editor who knows how much he is fed, is endowed with expressions and animations that do not always live up to expectations. In the case of the other NPCs, the situation is even worse.
What is most surprising about Breakpoint, however, is his graphic design. Let's face it: the latest Ghost Recon is graphically superior to its predecessor, but even in this case it goes on and on. It will be frequent to come across rough polygonal textures and patterns (the columns of smoke, for example, are a real punch in the eye), without taking into account the many pop-ins we will unfortunately have to get used to.
The general impression is that the game really puts a lot of strain on the hardware of PS4 Pro (the console we used), making the various NPCs of the HUB appear only after several minutes, the vehicles immediately outside it, and even the weapons that our character should carry, not to mention a frame rate that is not always stable.
Unfortunately, a menu that to define heavy, cumbersome and unclear is little, a basic repetitiveness of the missions (both main and secondary), aartificial intelligence not always adequate and, above all, the servers that, at least in the first days of the game's release, worked in fits and starts, especially considering that, to play Breakpoint, even in single player, it is mandatory to be connected.
A final note on the arsenal at our disposal and on the the system is booted. Breakpoint swerved vigorously in this direction, prompting us to explore every corner of the game map in search of crates, in which to find weapons, equipment or virtual currency. However, the differences between the various rifles, even if of very different levels, will often be minimal, especially in the effectiveness against enemies, without considering the various improvements, on which the shadow of microtransactions stretches.
Final judgement
Let's get our teeth out now: Ghost Recon Breakpoint is a revolution that was only half successful. If the technical side leaves us the impression, in some respects, of a beta not yet completed, what leaves the most bitter taste in the mouth is not being able to dare with the survival element, which could have brought all of us back to beginnings of the franchise.
Despite what has been said, however, Ghost Recon Breakpoint still manages to entertain those who play it, especially if you decide to live the adventure together with other "comrades in arms". We are sure that Ubisoft, with the release of some corrective patches, can give its fans a very valid and exciting gaming experience.
However, at the time of writing these lines, the impression is that it might have been reasonable to expect a little more.
