Developer: Ubisoft Paris, Massive Entertainment, Ubisoft Annecy
Publisher: Ubisoft
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
Tested on: PlayStation 4
Ghost Recon Breakpoint – Review
The Ghost Recon franchise has always been about modern warfare. Equipped with the latest gadgets, these titles were very interesting and showed us what the future of war looks like. Like other series from Ubisoft, this one stayed dormant for a few years until 2017 when Wildlands was released. This game gave us an open map to explore, with many vehicles and allowed players to decide between going in stealthy or with flair. Breakpoint introduces a slightly different play concept in which you will have to increasingly rely on stealth. Not because it is essential, but because the enemy faction is way too powerful.
Story
The game takes place on the beautiful island of Aurora, located far from normal civilization and owned by the owner of Skell Technology. This company is one that has created drones for commercial and military use. When suddenly a cargo ship from the USA mysteriously sinks near that island, the CIA sends in a squad of Special Forces to check out the situation. It turns out that the modern drone technology from Skell is hijacked by a terrorist group called Wolves. This high-tech weaponry combined with the troops and supplies from Sentinel makes this group utterly dangerous and this is demonstrated when they take down the helicopters of the Ghost Squad. Everyone crashes and only you, Nomad, survive. While searching for your fallen comrades, you meet an old friend, Walker, who has gone to the other side and is now the main antagonist.
During your time on the island, you discover more and more about what happened and slowly uncover the story of Aurora, the Wolves group and the private military contractor Sentinel that supplies the weapons. The story flow is slow because the game is so huge and there is way too much to discover. You have a good starting point with the flashback of Walker, which does motivate the player to uncover all the events going down on the island.
Graphics
The graphics in Breakpoint are clearly divided between the current console generation and PC. While the game does look great on the newer versions of said consoles, it is very clear that on the older models cuts have been made to make the game run smoothly. On the basic PS4, for example, there are a few types of textures that won’t load in and when aiming down the sights, it is easy to spot a non-rendered dustcover or upper rail. Most people will use an optic sight on their gun, so this isn’t a nightmare, but those who want the best-looking game better own a PS4 Pro, Xbox One X or a proper gaming PC.
The devil is in the details with this game, as your character and gear will respond to the environment that they are currently in. Your outfit will get wet or covered with dirt and snow as you go through it. Even better is that this accumulates and only slowly deteriorates until you are clean again (or just jump in a pond). The developers put this feature to great use with the addition of prone camo. By using this, your character will engulf himself in its surroundings making them highly camouflaged. Surely, when you relocate you will look like a monster, but this gives extra intimidation, right?
Another sweet deal is the option to override gear visuals. This means that while Breakpoint uses different gear and gear scores to make you more powerful, you can just trick out your character the way you want and have fun being the operator that you want to be.
Sound
While there is a book to write about the graphics, the sound is a bit more civilized. Voice acting is on point in this game, and the characters sound the part. Our main antagonist has this specific tone of dread in his voice, while your character Nomad sounds like the real veteran operator. Vehicles sound wonderful with heavy V8 noises emitting from the larger vehicles. In these modern times, you would think that the military would switch over to more electric-styled transportation, but no. While the drones are of course fully electric, it is just amazing to hear the roar of a large-capacity diesel engine when running over a bunch of troopers in a truck. Gunfights sound great and adding a silencer to your gun might suppress the noise a bit but when going in full contact, you will barely hear the difference between the two at first. This makes gunplay highly realistic and will have you dive for cover when hearing bullets fly past your ear.
Gameplay
Ghost Recon Breakpoint is a tactical open-world shooter that gives the player great freedom in their steps through the story mode. The game starts with you dropping on an island that has been taken over by private contracting agency Sentinel. Unfortunately for your squad, it seems that they don’t take kindly to strangers and shoot down the whole squadron of helicopters, only your character survive the initial crash. Badly wounded and only armed with a pistol, you get the tutorial about how to heal and stealthily kill enemies. Not only is Sentinel well-equipped, but you also are not a superhero that can tank a whole magazine of rounds. Shortly after the introduction, you meet with an old pal, Walker, an ex-Ghost operator with whom you have quite a large history. Walker is now the leader of the extremely powerful Wolves faction and as shown by the gear indicator, they sit around 150 points at the beginning of the game. Gear score determines survivability and since you just started out, these guys are no match for you. In all honesty, there will be players trying to take on this group and by doing so, you will notice the balancing of Breakpoint. Most enemies will die from one bullet to the head or face. Only heavy soldiers will need two since they are wearing a bulletproof helmet.
Don’t get caught by the strong hostiles as only a few rounds from them will make your character an actual ghost. Finding new and better gear in the open will drive you to make various trips around the island with a wide range of vehicles at your disposal. Navigating on the map can be done in two ways: the classic guided mode or the exploration mode that gives you clues of the whereabouts. Acquiring gear with a higher score is essential but thanks to the great balancing of the game you won’t get stuck on this feature if you play your cards right and use stealth to your advantage. Even lower-tier gear will get you far in the game and with the impressive number of weapons and attachments available, you will definitely find something that suits your needs. The same goes for the gear, getting better armor will increase your defensive capabilities and thanks to the skin override, you won’t have to look like a homeless person that just tags on different pieces to have the highest points.
Enemies are not only strong in direct combat, but they also patrol the streets with highly-equipped attack vehicles, have drones scanning the area and killer drones get sent out when you are spotted. These troops won’t hold back when they spot an intruder and will love a confrontation. This means that you will have to be stealthy at all times, shoot down drones or evade these by camouflaging yourself. Breakpoint is also pointed towards survival as you must eat and drink to maintain stamina, heal injuries and drag corpses to conceal your fallen enemies. Injuries will hamper your mobility and you must get to cover and fix yourself before walking back into battle. Luckily, you can specialize in one of four classes based on your needs. The classes are Field Medic, Assault, Sharpshooter, and Panther. Each class has its own bonus perks, so you can either specialize in stealth, long-range takedown, durability or team sustainability. The last one is always interesting when playing online with up to three friends so you can keep them going if they run into a mortar or attack drone.
Controlling the game goes quite well with the many options at your disposal and the buttons are preset very well. Vehicles do have poor handling but that is a returning fact in these open-world shooters. The only lesser part is that button prompts sometimes don’t react very well and will cause issues when climbing ladders or interacting with chests.
Conclusion
Ghost Recon Breakpoint is a fun game that can be played stealthily in single player, or co-op with friends. The immense depth of the story and gameplay makes this title one that people will keep on playing for hours on end. The graphics are nice with many details unless you are playing on an older system because then you will notice some rougher edges. Dress up your character and weapon in any way you want and become the ultimate Ghost warrior.
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