I had a list of games I was interested in keeping an eye on this year, and I was excited because the main one in the list was going to be out in May. That’d left me with plenty of great games releasing or going into beta through the first half of the year, and then a great game to dive hard into over the next several months.
Unfortunately, my excitement now has to be on hold until August, and that’s put me in a situation where I need to stretch a few interesting games out between now and then. It probably sounds weird, but the one I’m most interested in right now, I’m leaving on the back burner for the moment. I’m giving it time to be patched and have minor issues sorted before I dive hard into a game that I know will eat my free time like a temporal Cookie Monster.
That’s two huge games suddenly off the table, but a friend has been pestering me to play Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint with him for the last several weeks, and I’ve finally given in. I was not prepared for how much I actually enjoyed this game. I’m going to explore some of that internal conflict today, but I’ll also note some of the issues I have with the game and the things I like in order to help readers decide whether it’s right for them.
Mistaken Identity
I’d initially passed on Ghost Recon Breakpoint because the streams I’d watched at the time and the reviews left me feeling like it was just more of the same. After some minor issues with The Division and general boredom engendered by Wildlands and The Division 2, I was just a little burned out on the “Tom Clancy” titles.
The fact is, I probably made the right call at the time. Early videos and streams showed that GRB was just like Wildlands in all the wrong ways and not really the sort of game that I’d find all that appealing. A lot has changed with the game, though. I’m glad that I didn’t spoil it for myself by playing the earlier version of it.
I started with gear score off, but eventually turned it on because I was missing an interesting part of the game.
Some incredibly intelligent design went into Ghost Recon Breakpoint, and even more has gone in since the initial release. One of the things I’m most impressed with is the Ghost settings and how different players can play coop with different settings at the same time. This is absolutely brilliant, but you have to understand what the Ghost Experience settings are first.
These settings are what determine the level of difficulty, realism, and immersion in the game. On one side is easy hostiles and the standard UI with mini-map and all the needed information presented efficiently on the screen. On the other side of the spectrum is full immersion with hardly any UI at all, much harder enemies, and standardized gear. Part of the genius in this system is the ability to mix, match, and scale everything in between those polar extremes.
My settings are configured with minimal UI and with no mini-map in the bottom-right corner. I have the enemies set to above moderate difficulty and their icons hidden in the hud. While I really liked having weapon quality disabled, I felt like I was missing an interesting part of the game and eventually turned weapon quality on, and I also enabled icons for loot in my UI.
I feel like this gives me a really good balance between minimalistic immersion and still allowing access to some of the game’s innovative design choices. My buddy, who’s in the Air Force and doesn’t care for as much challenge, has his settings configured for pillow fight mode and we both play coop missions in our own chosen levels of immersion. It’s a fantastic way to enjoy a game with friends that have slightly different tastes. It’s a feature that I think will likely make this a fantastic experience with kids.
Minor Problems
That’s not saying everything is perfect with Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint. There are certainly a few minor bugs to be found here and there while walking around in the game. A few seem to be odd glitches or mistakes, but some are a little more persistent.
Playing GRB with my friend (who’s currently OCONUS and obviously doesn’t have the best internet connection) the other day resulted in some latency problems and a few hiccups. Occasionally we’d warp in and out of each other while running between points. We also had an issue with a hostage rescue mission when the hostage appeared to still be on the ground for him, though I’d just put him in the car on my screen. Additionally, we’ve had sync issues showing one of us in or out of a vehicle on one screen and then the opposite on the other player’s screen.
This laptop floating in midair on top of a building was one of the more interesting bugs. It happened to also contain important intelligence on one of my current targets.
I’m pretty forgiving of that sort of thing, but I’m not sure it was an internet problem. It felt more like server issues of some sort, because we’d play at odd times during the week without trouble and then during peak hours suddenly have issues. The only problem is that I don’t really know for sure what the client/server relationship looks like with this particular game, so I could be totally wrong. It was just a specific coop issue that didn’t exist playing solo or during off-peak periods.
I think there were also some minor misses with the new Ghost Experience feature. In general, the ability to shape your own experience and difficulty with the granularity offered in Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint is nothing short of massively brilliant. That said, I ran into a few issues with the gear score options. With them turned off, as I preferred early on, I couldn’t complete one of the tutorial missions requiring me to upgrade my weapon, because I couldn’t salvage other weapons for parts.
I get not letting people carry around extra gear without gear score enabled. That makes complete sense to me, but in those cases, I feel like you should still be able to salvage dropped weapons without picking them up. That seems like a good balance to me. At the very least and if not the salvage option, they should disable that tutorial mission because it doesn’t make sense in the non-gear-score context.
I also had some minor pathing issues with AI getting pinned behind obstacles, myself driving and then crashing into obstacles that didn’t appear to be close enough to have been struck, and twice I picked up a piece of intel and got stuck between a crate and motorcycle after the animation.
Obviously, I’m really stretching for problems. I really didn’t have a lot of actual issues with the game, and none of them really broke it permanently for me because dying isn’t that big of a deal in Ghost Recon games. Open-world games are also relatively forgiving when it comes to problems and hiccups completing objectives.
I love maps and the maps in this franchise are the same type as we used in the Army. I can spend a lot of time just working my way over the map and planning out my routes from one point to another.
Surprise Success
As I stated earlier, I was absolutely surprised by how much fun I’ve had in Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint. Having played a number of the games in this franchise and others cut from the same cloth, I just wasn’t expecting the depth I’m seeing in this game. The crazy thing is that it’s depth in the right places, and not just tedious. A number of other titles, and Wildlands jumps to mind, had this sort of meta game where the player’s faction slowly takes over region by region.
This is fine and even fun in its way, but it can also be boringly tedious and define a specific “endgame.” Without that mechanic, Ghost Recon Breakpoint doesn’t seem to feel as much like a job. I’m not trying to close out the missions in any given region or trying to flip it back to a specific faction. Daily missions and monthly operations are assigned all over the map, and clandestine operations are available everywhere. This has resulted in a much more relaxed attitude towards the game that I think has allowed me to enjoy it more. I’m just doing the missions that look interesting and the drive for completion part of me isn’t engaging and pushing me to wrap up all the missions in each region before moving on.
I also feel the system that allows players to enjoy coop missions together while still having personally customized experiences through the Ghost settings may be the most intelligent design decision I’ve ever seen. It’s a system that would allow me to play the same game with the kids in my family and each of us finding a pleasing level of challenge without being overwhelmed.
Classes and skills add a touch of extra interest, especially when playing coop with friends.
As with all games in the franchise, GRB is a very attractive game with exceptional sound design and character modeling. Explosions feel suitably fantastic and gunfire has the snap-crack sound we all have heard in movies. Distance distorts sounds, making explosions and gunfire farther off sound appropriate.
I don’t know that I’ll spend a whole lot more time on this game with the others out there calling my name. I’ll only be able to hold off so long before I switch back to some of the other games I’ve been excited to see this year, but Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint will definitely hold my interest for a while longer.
The best part is that you don’t have to trust me, though. You can download a demo that allows you to play six hours on your own, and extends that to unlimited time until June while you play coop with someone else who owns their own copy of Ghost Recon Breakpoint. It’s a fantastic way to enjoy a game with three other people while only making one purchase.
I think the game is worth the purchase otherwise, though. Whether through the monthly UPLAY+ option or actually buying the game straight out, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint is a fantastic experience that will give you weeks of entertainment at a minimum. With new missions being introduced periodically and the randomized daily missions, that timeline could be significantly protracted, depending on what you like in your own games.
I have absolutely had a blast with Breakpoint and have no issue recommending it. I’d also applaud Ubisoft because the free demo was what sold the game. I’m unlikely to have tried it otherwise. I’ve now purchased my own copy and a couple other copies for my nephews, so Ubi clearly used a marketing tool that’s worked.
Give the free demo a shot and let me know what you think. I’m curious to know if others are as surprised by how much Ghost Recon Breakpoint has changed since release and by how much better it is in some ways than other games in the franchise. I found it particularly shocking because this game felt so much lighter than the others when it released, so I’m interested to know what you all think. Let me know below!
