I finished Breakpoint

 Guess I'm a liar

I can't finish Ghost Recon: Breakpoint. (Semi-review)

 Knowing when you're beaten

My process for writing reviews on games is typical all consuming. I like to sit down and voraciously rip my way through a gameplay experience as exhaustively as possible. Typically you'll find me in the trenches, playing every game until it's final moment, taking notes about every step of the way to accurate convey it's entire package. That's typically the respect I impart upon games because they are collaborative works of art that deserve to be consumed as a whole product, rather than in parts. I eat up the story, learn what makes the characters kick, feel how the gameplay lays itself out and how far it spreads across the length of the game, and convey my own knowledge having experienced the world of games for as long as I have. But judging from the title of this blog alone you can probably tell that is a streak I am about to break, and I have some prime cut excuses to explain myself.

Let me start by talking about Ghost Recon: Wildlands. I started playing Wildlands a few years after it launched and subsequently faded from history as just another open world Ubisoft game with nothing revolutionary under it's name, and so my expectations were for a simple time-waster bargain bin experience. What I actually ended up playing surprised me with it's quality. Revolutionary? No. But solid and repayable: Yes! It was a vast open world built around tiny simply designed stealth-focused gameplay snippets splayed over the wide land of Bolivia. Sure, the world was more impressive for it's scale than the usual ascendant beauty of a Ubisoft product, and the gameplay was so easy that 'stealth' was pretty much always a choice rather than a requirement- but the game was easy to pick and get lost in, the story was simple and formulaic so you could follow along without really getting invested, (the game wasn't in-depth enough to get invested anyway) and it's fun was just intuitive to a fault.

Over my time playing Ghost Recon Wildlands, covering my two playthroughs, DLC, Online meddling and half of a third 'hardcore' playthrough I was trying out before I got bored- I sank a total of 18 Days, 17 hours and 40 minutes into my time with that game. Let that alone be my glowing endorsement of an average experience that got everything it needed to right to keep the player coming back, no doubt aided by the very light live-service skin that the game wore. I would never call Wildlands a great game, but I would go to bat for establishing it as a good one. Better than the critics who discarded it, a military-themed playground with mindless fun and decent stealth- moderate engagement and a serviceable narrative. The DLC was kind of bad though. So that was what I was expecting with Breakpoint.

Actually, I wanted Breakpoint to be a vast improvement on everything that Wildlands was, as you may have picked up from my glowing endorsement of the game's beta, but early reviews quickly dispelled that fantasy. Again, critics didn't like it, fans were lukewarm on it, and in typical Ubisoft fashion the team took that as code for "Make the game package as expensive as possible and keep throwing new price-inflating content on top!" (I guess it works for them, somehow.) But I figured at worst the game would just be another Wildlands- an average time-sink worthy of keeping around for a year or two just to waste time in when there's nothing else to do. Maybe some half-decent stealth, a decent enough story, some replayability- it should have at least hit the minimum bar that it's predecessor set, right? RIGHT?

I can't rightly identify what went wrong with this game without a time machine and a news crew. but let me try and quantify why I'm actually going to give up on playing this game with just over 15 hours of laborious playtime. (And it's not entirely the game's fault. To be fair.) And to start with I need to harp on one of the most important parts of any interactive product: the gameplay. Look how they massacred my boy! Wildlands was basic and intuitive in that way that all average games tend to be, universal and easy to pick up, friendly to casual play. Philosophies that the Breakpoint team evidently spat on. I can't believe I never realised at the time just how damaging to the gameplay cycle the haphazard and badly conceived survival elements would be. 

The key feature of Breakpoint that set it apart from Wildlands was the idea that 'you are all there is, no back-up, no overwatch, just you on your own'. That meant scavenging for weaponry, picking up crafting materials and looking after yourself when your body gets shot to pieces after a fire fight. The game has a stamina meter which becomes damaged if you push it past it's limit, an injury system that requires you to sit down and expend bandages if you've been wounded or else be forced to limp around slowly, and you have no companions. (At least at first. The game added AI companions later in a really lazy way that doesn't give them any ambient chatter or personality or cutscene presence or any of the little touches that made them anything more than shoot-turrets in Wildlands.)

The problem with all of these systems is how much of a hassle they are to the casual loop of this giant game clearly not built to be a hardcore survival experience. Simply sprinting from one objective to another in this ungainly huge map will damage your stamina requiring you to expend a water bottle that needs to crafted or purchased to be replaced. Injuries are saved with checkpoints, meaning the only way to recover after every gunfight even if you catch a stray bullet is to expend a bandage which needs to be crafted or purchased, or to retreat to a camp and endure an ardours and unskippable 'patching yourself up' animation. Do you want to take a break from your routine of base infiltration to go plant picking so you can craft bandages? No? Then maybe you don't mind fast travelling back to the one vendor location in the whole game, walking the two minute journey to the vendor, and then walking back out and fast travelling back into the action? What's that? Oh right, that sounds tedious and unfun. Funny that!

UI has been a big joke at Ubisoft's expense ever since Elden Ring reminded the industry how it was done by being so beautifully sparse and easy to innately grasp. Breakpoint is prime example of it at the company's worst. 3 different Quests pinned under one another with a map squeezed in one corner and class progression reminder shoved in another menu. The quest menu is an ugly mess of faction quests and main quests and DLC quests and online quests all smashed together on the world's least coherent evidence board. Even getting and using weapons is inherently complicated. Picking them up doesn't unlock them, you need to buy the blueprint then gather the parts and build the thing. Then, of course, the crappy gun is levelled: although thankfully that entire painful levelling aspect of the game is now opt-in only thanks to a year of sustained backlash forcing the developers to change course. You still have to go through the stupid 'blueprint buying' process though.

Whenever you start a game and dread the process of learning what all your menus mean, that should be a ringing red alert right there that this is a game that needs to be redesigned from the ground-up. Strip out the pages of information, declutter the player's interface, order the quest screen like a sane person would- make the act of understanding the menus as painless as possible and you'll retain players past that initial introductory hour. I mean for god sake: the game had an entire 5 quest long chain of just menu and systems tutorials, read the room Breakpoint, you're not the kind of game that demands that level of consumer focus!

The world of Ghost Recon: Breakpoint is an archipelago of fictional islands with some of the most confusing geometry known to man. And whilst yes, on a very surface level the world of the game is pretty, the mountains are vast and snow-capped, the forests are bounding and heavy and the swamps are... swampy: there's a huge lack of heart and identity in any of it. Culture, personality- it's all burned away to fit this new-age aesthetic of sleek modern habitats built in largely non-descript island scenery. You'll find clean-tiled research stations and clean-tiled city scapes and maybe a little bit of a rougher-hewn military base and if you're really lucky, you might even happen across an old air-hanger or two. But even the derelicts don't appear to have any artistic impression or story to tell- they're just placed there to be there. This is perhaps one of the most artificial feeling worlds that Ubisoft has ever produced and really dulls that desire to explore and see what's out there when you know it's all designed to just be content pockets- there's nothing to really see.

And the world is big, in all the worst 'Ubisoftian' ways. Habitats, stations and bases are all spread out miles from each for no apparent reason whatsoever. Drone manufacturing hubs are slapped in the middle of nowhere, habitats are established with no connection to surrounding resources and all of it creates a world of 'scale' and nothing else. But this game in particular seems to be too big even for Ubisoft's usual 'flood the world with activities and call it a day' approach. You'll spend hours just travelling between content locations across mountains or down endless identical roads, beset with nothing but your own unending boredom as it becomes ever more apparent that there's nothing to actually do inbetween base infiltrations. Tiny patrols of enemies, the odd fly-over sky drone, flowers to pick, and walking. So much bloody walking. And when you finally take to the skies, you'll find the beauty of the world slightly tainted by the cloudy mess of signal fire campsites (the game's only fast travel points) because Ubisoft for some reason felt it necessary to make all these points visible at the same time for the naked eye, despite the fact they appear just fine and dandy on the in-game map. This game kind of feels like it was made in separate rooms with no interaction with one another. 

In story Breakpoint starts somewhat strong, for the first few minutes. You are attacked on a routine check-up to the research-facility-gone-dark by a team of rogue special forces members led by Jon Bernthal that have seized control of the islands military potential and plan to... well, you see, they're going to... um... I guess actually they're still in the process of seizing, somehow. Despite the fact that these guys are the only security the island has aside from standard mercenaries who... I don't think it's ever really explained who hired the standard mercenaries but they seem to be buddy buddy with the Special Forces guys so I guess they're the same team: Jon's 'Wolves' haven't immediately seized control of the various murderous military drones and waged international world war or whatever half-assed 24-style fanfic the writer of this mess wrote on the back of his napkin the moment after he was hired before running off to get a more fulfilling role doing literally anything else.

The narrative is paper-thin and the game realises this immediately, stringing the player slong in an incessantly boring line of 'please fetch this person or this technology or this McGuffin' quests under the loose promise that it's all conjoined in a wider plot that seems ephemeral at this point. The only solid is the fact that Jon, the villain, has a connection with the protagonist's, Nomad's, past in that they both served in some middle-eastern war together. (It's probably specified which one at some point but it isn't really all that important anyway) Rather than leave this to the imagination or allude to their brotherly bond, Ubisoft will rip you away at genuinely random moments to subject you to minute long flash-back sequences of their daily antics together, frolicking around warzones hand-in-hand, to the extent that they lose their narrative oomph almost immediately. And the 'triggers' for these flashbacks are so asinine. One scientist mentions how Walker (that's Jon's character name but he's so generic I usually just call him Jon anyway) is working with some cutthroat lady, so cue a 5 minute flashback of interactions with Walker being about as sus of a soldier as humanly possible (torturing information out of prisoners with two swift stick hits to the shin. The guy works fast) and he'll off-hand mention wanting to work with a woman like that someday. Meaning we've learnt what? That the woman we were just told Walker is working with fits the description of a woman that Walker said he knew a few years ago? Wow, am I glad we got that piece of vital connecting tissue to make this narrative function! And here I was about to enter a boredom induced coma- think of the narrative complexity I would have been missing out on!

Progression feels non existent throughout this game, and I acknowledge that my own style of play is slightly to blame for that. Forgoing the asinine and painful weapon levelling and upgrade system in favour of playing this like an actual tactical stealth game apparently came at the cost of any feeling of gameplay progress whatsoever. What in previous Ghost Recon games was reinforced by coherent progress through a narrative, Wildlands even had an extremely comprehensive board of targets we worked our way up to reach the big boss, has been buried in favour of faction questlines that feel like they were written and acted by an AI that was trained on the work of other, somehow depressed, AI language models. Missions don't feel like they've progressed the narrative at all, they just kind of stop and a new one starts- and I get the feeling I could play this game all the way through and never get a sense for if I was at the beginning, middle or end of the narrative. Which in a way is impressive in itself. They've broken all tenets of solid pacing and storytelling to break new ground in generic game design, truly Ubisoft are in a league of their own.

And I have to talk about the cutscenes for a second. The only way that Breakpoint has to convey information to the player, outside of a hideously cluttered menu system packed with some of the most mind-numbingly boring lore files ever written, (And remember: I'm a guy who reads all the in-universe Fantasy books in game- I know the difference between engaging and boring lore text.) are cutscenes at the beginning, middle and end of every mission. So why did no effort go into them? Cutscene models appear to be the exact same as in-play models, with the lack of ambulatory and moving face muscles being very apparent. Model choreography is actually non-existent, characters will stand in front of each other and speak directly into each others faces with no other sign of life, yet for some reason Ubisoft thought this developed enough to justify constant shot, reverse-shot angles so we can see the lifeless conversations in all their (sometimes unskippable) glory. Oh, and the actual animated cutscenes appear to only be the flashbacks and a few extremely rare set-pieces that are largely unimpressive or drag out for way too long. (The scene of Nomad fighting off the drones set on him made me actually want to curl up and go to sleep until the game was done playing itself.)

There's more to Breakpoint, there's an online I can't bring myself to play for more than an hour a week, several islands I don't care enough to explore, and two expansions I'll never push through to reach-but what's the point? I experienced everything in the first 5 hours and the game has no new tricks to show me. I get the same kind of feeling playing Breakpoint that I did when playing Watch_Dogs Legion, that sickening tightening of the stomach when reality dawns after less than a tenth of this experience that "Oh, this is it. They ran out of ideas instantly, didn't they?" Ubisoft always gets a harsh wrap for it's bloated games, stuffed with meaningless stuff to pad out playtime, but then you get games like this: the bottom of even that low-rent barrel. AA ideas for small games stretched out and stamped into full fledged AAA length products that can't justify that size or length, bore their customers to tears and makes us wonder why we even waste time playing video games to begin with. Breakpoint isn't a video game, it's a chore- and I just don't think I can bring myself to finish a chore of a game to play. Maybe I'll inch my way through bit by bit, but it won't be to write this review, but to burn time in the most vapid way possible. There's no point in formulating a review, I've experienced everything this game is going to deliver to me already. As you can tell I absolutely do not recommend this game, even at the steepest discount. In heart, this is actually a better play experience that Legion, but I'm so disappointed in it's lack of ambition that I can't even rate this game as comparable to that. Ghost Recon: Breakpoint gets a D - grade in my review score. What little credit present is due only to the functioning game mechanics that can be fun initially, but it doesn't carry the game and doesn't carry the score to anything close to passing grade. What a sad excuse for a Ghost Recon game. Ubisoft underwhelms once again.

Ghost Recon Breakpoint is dead

 Alas, poor Nomad.

Wet your cloth of mourning upon your crown and lay on it on the ceremonial cradle, then in your grief ascribe that which will be your last words to Breakpoint, for I fear it has passed our realm to the otherside of The Dream. Though difficult and fraught it's life, ever did the Breakpoint cling it to it's faithful, assured in their loyalty to a visage tarnished. But twisted and broken as that body was, not perseverance, not faith, nor an ill-timed, and likely ill-intentioned, NFT transfusion, could fix its beaten form. A teachable lesson to us all that love can only carry us but a part of the way, and sometimes there truly is nothing more our bony mortal hands can do. So as it was born, so shall it depart; Breakpoint, in ignominy. Its being now here interred, to monument another paved stone on Ubisoft's path to utterly and totally destroy the legacy of the late Tom Clancy.

Yes, you interpreted my Blasphemous-addled words appropriately; Ghost Recon Breakpoint is leaving the cycle of updates that had kept it somewhere approaching a 'live service' for so many years; thus officially killing the game's future. This gives it roughly the same amount of life under a support structure that Wildlands enjoyed, and yet somehow this one feels more dismissive; even pitiful, in comparison. I suspect that feeling comes from the way that Ghost Recon Wildlands managed to squeak out two whole DLC campaigns and even something of a positive reputation before it went out. Also, Wildlands left us with absolutely zero downtime due to the fact it was supported directly up until Breakpoint launched, with the last update even containing a special mission thread which acted as a direct prequel to Breakpoint. (Which in itself is a little odd given that it implies that Nomad's team was active in Bolivia for a full three years after they canonically defeated the cartel, and for no particular reason. Don't those people have families to go home to?) Breakpoint, on the otherhand, leaves us a pariah.

We know for the moment that a new Ghost Recon game is indeed in development, with Kotaku managing to nab the project codename as 'Over'. (Which happens to coincide with an NVidia leak from a while back, so double confirmation.) But whether or not that game is due to be announced this year, it won't get it's red carpet debut filed away at the end of Breakpoint's life cycle which is a shame because I thought that was the literally coolest use of this 'Live service' mania that we've seen so far. I mean sure, Borderlands 2 actually did the exact same thing and with a DLC pack that was considerably more substantial than Wildland's... but Borderlands 2 was kind of a Live service too if you think about the way it was supported. Kinda... sort of... In fact, I'd say Borderlands 2 was the first Live service! I'm getting off track- my point is that Ghost Recon fans are going to be dry for at the very least a few months, and it's a shame things have to end this way.

Breakpoint had a rough start; I think that's something we can all agree with. After a year of marketing which I considered to be decently successful, (They fooled me at least) the game launched to largely scathing reviews that picked apart the story, the gameplay loop, the content stretch and, most lamentably, the crappy attempt at recreating a looter-shooter here. Yeah, for some asinine reason (>Cough< Because Destiny nets 500 Million a year >Cough<) the team decided to throw random stats and levels for conventional firearms when it made no sense within the context, ("Why does this M4 shoot harder than that M4?") lacked meaningful depth that such a system demands, (like set bonuses and transformative specified keywords) and proved so detrimental to the core experience, that the team themselves had to cobble together a looter-free mode in the game post-launch for everyone's sanity.

And then there was the microtransaction store. There's this trend going around that some of the more nefarious studios have been pulling, and if your game is spotted with your hand in this cookie jar, it's my humble opinion that you and your game is automatically branded the worst and should be disparaged for the rest of it's active life cycle. I'm talking the art of creating a microtransaction store with pay-to-win crap and then disabling it for the first few weeks of play so that all the reviews won't spot it and factor it into their scores, before slapping it on and hoping to ride the backlash wave unscathed. I cannot convey how utterly disgusting I find that- it's beyond blatantly bonkers, it's downright consumer hostile. I despise games who do this, and of course Breakpoint can count itself upon that thankfully lean list.

All of that crippled this game at it's launch, and the unlucky team who was saddled with keeping this heaving beast breathing were up against a wall with their trousers down. But they stuck with the job, and with a lot of updates and patches, some good some bad, they desperately managed to claw back some vague respect from the community. The Breakpoint community wasn't exactly thriving, and it never would be after the dog's dinner that Ubisoft made of the launch month, (Great job Yves, you bumbling buffoon) but they'd reached a point of mutual respect with those that remained. And then Ubisoft reared it's moronic head around the door to ruin everything through turning Breakpoint into their NFT guinea pig.

You have to understand something here for a second. The relationship between Tom Clancy fans and Ubisoft proper isn't fraught- it's totally cut. TC fans pretty much equate Ubisoft to the devil when considering their handling of Tom Clancy's brand, for the way that they keep trying to prostitute out his name for an easy buck on their terrible cash grab wastes of space. You've got their Fortnite clone, Tom Clancy's Frontline, (received so badly it's beta was delayed) Tom Clancy's XDefiant, (ridiculed until they removed Tom Clancy from the title completely) and you've got the new Splinter Cell. (A disaster waiting to launch, we all know in our souls.) What I'm trying to say is that we are pretty much enemies of one another at this point, and so you'd have thought it would be in Ubisoft's best interest to reach across the isle. But instead they threw Molotov's over that bar.

Bastardizing Breakpoint into an NFT shill game is literally the only thing in Ubisoft's power they could have done to hurt their game's reputation more than the whole 'hiding the premium store' debacle. It's as though they were actively trying to find the worst idea they could think of in order to sink Breakpoint even worse than it already was; to drive the game to and past it's own breakpoint. No one, not even the developers of the game, could understand what Ubisoft was thinking with this strategy, because if they wanted to try something bold and new, you'd have thought they'd put a new game out. Instead they took a practice that the whole world hates and threw in a game that was battered already. I honestly, truly, do believe that someone high up at Ubisoft had a bad experience with Tom Clancy once and has dedicated his career to ensuring the TC name is little more than mud in the industry. And knowing what we know about the gutterslime that patrol Ubisoft head offices; I think that's a pretty plausible theory, honestly.

Today the heads of Ubisoft have won. Breakpoint is to be discontinued and seen off unceremoniously so that efforts can move to how the team are going to ruin the next Ghost Recon title. And you know what? I never even got the chance to buy Breakpoint. I, and many others, who loved Wildlands for it's extremely flawed package; avoided this game like the plague and like that chance encounter you let slip by, now it's all just too little too late. Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your Songs? Your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on aroar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? Quite chap fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come. Make her laugh at that.

Are Ubisoft finally changing things up?

Only now, at the end, do you understand.

Oh, the sweet sound of being right about a topic for a change; could there be anything so devilishly piquant? For years now it feels like I've been in the absolute lowest minority when it comes to calling out Ubisoft for being the idea-bankrupt hacks they are. (Or rather, that the Ubisoft A-team are. The B-Teams put together some cool games every once and a while.) Time and time again our argument was met that those who enjoyed lapping up the same game year upon year, as though these people loved the prospect of signing up to the industry's highest-bar season pass. In their defence, however, there was quite a lot of hyperbole from our side of the argument, but it didn't change the fact that Ubisoft reveled in their mediocrity to such a degree that Yves Guillemot offered a complimentary backhand to 'Breath of the Wild', claiming they did nothing new and just copied Ubisoft's formula, albeit to a flawless execution. (I love you, Yves, but that's some bull and you know it.)

But all this outrage and finger pointing can finally rest now that we have an admission of defeat on Ubisoft's end. For, you see, not too long ago it became public knowledge, as reported by Polygon, that Ubisoft are on the road to restructuring their editorial team going forward. A change, it would seem, brought about due to the similarities between 'Ghost Recon Breakpoint' and 'The Division 2'. (Something which seems to have cost both games dearly in terms of sales.) Of course, that isn't the only problem that those two games, or more the former game, suffered from; but it was a huge source of public and critical backlash throughout the launch period of those games.

'Ghost Recon: Wildlands', the game which bought the 'Ghost Recon' brand into the modern world of oversized open-worlds, was an action stealth game wherein all that players had to actively worry about was the state of their ammo pouch. 'Breakpoint' decided to 'shake up' this system by throwing in a pointless RPG system that would require players to constantly cycle out 'underleveled' guns and switch them for new guns as well as breaking down items for materials that would then be crafted into new guns and- God it all just makes me want to tear my hair out! Oh, and I did I say this system was 'pointless'? Sorry, I misspoke. What I meant to say was, this system did nothing to add value to the formula, rather just provided an excuse to ramp up monetisation to a 'pay-to-win' degree wherein the team could charge for anything from raw material to cool customization pieces to skill points. (Oh wait, sorry they're called: 'time savers'.) Seems most people weren't dense enough to fall for any of that, because mass audiences dropped 'Breakpoint' like a brick and here Ubisoft is, trying to recover from the backlash.

As for The Division 2, I can't speak from first-hand experience for it's troubles, actually from what I've heard on an anecdotal level, folk seem to like it. If I were to guess, that game's greatest failings may have been due to the fact that 'Breakpoint' worked to poach it's sales with a ludicrously similar premise, which would explain why Ubisoft have finally woken up to the fact that their systems need a significant change. As Polygon reports it, Ubisoft CEO has blamed the lackluster sales of both those titles (Which, remember, both hailed from the storied 'Tom Clancy' brand, and so should have been easy sellers) on "a lack of differentiation in consumers' minds". Now, ignoring the fact that he just called us all stupid, it does make sense, in a twisted way, that fans will grow tired with a game developer who puts out essentially the same product every year. (Unless you're a sports fan. They live off that repetition.) In today's age there are a plethora of other exciting titles all vying for attention of fans and all offering something wild, new and attention grabbing. If Ubisoft can't remain competitive in that market, it's only fair that they get left behind in the dust.

In regards to the actual steps being taken, we won't be seeing a complete reshuffle of the company's ranks, but more of a light overhual. To that end, Ubisoft's chief creative Officer, Serge Hascoet, won't be moving from his cushy seat as head of the editorial group, (You know, despite his failure to encourage creativity.) but instead he'll be given more subordinates with more autonomy of their own. Oh, add more rungs on the ladder... that'll help communication. According to the report, this will help Ubisoft's flagship franchises like Assassin's Creed, Watch Dogs and For Honor, feel more distinct. Woah, hold up... 'For Honor'? That title has one game which barely scrapes into the most played online games list even at peak times, how does that even count as a franchise let alone flagship? (Don't get me wrong, I would very much like a sequel to come out and fix all of the problems of the first game but we don't yet live in that world.)

Allegedly, and I can't stress how alleged this is, the previous system of rule over at Ubisoft often meant that tastes and opinions of one or two important folk in the editorial team often managed to work it's way into the games themselves. And that just makes sense, doesn't it? That's why, after Watch Dogs 2 introduced a drone for spotting enemies, that same drone found it's way into the Division, Ghost Recon Wildlands and 'Assassin's Creed Origins'. (Through means of 'recon eagle') Way to take a fad and push it to it's absolute extreme, guys, you're doing gods work in making every single game feel the same and uninspired.

Of course, that isn't the only factor contributing to the 'samey-ness' of all these titles. As the Polygon article pointed out, Ubisoft have officially geared their company more towards open world titles that all have some sort of live service angle to them of late, meaning that every single pitch meeting for these titles have the exact same whiteboard set-up. ("Here is the circle for the recurrency loops and here is the level-gating to force players to spend money.") Guillemot believes that their upcoming games could suffer from the same lack of diversity that harmed the Tom Clancy titles. And that's likely why we haven't heard a peep out of 'Watch Dogs: Legion' since it's recent delay.

Ultimately, will this save Ubisoft games and make them more of a contender on the AAA stage, likely not, but this may work to halt their decline for the time being. Fans are just starting to realize how Ubisoft are half-arsing their creative process, and taking active steps to obfuscate that might just placate the immediate problem. I fear the real issue with Ubisoft titles are more deeply ingrained, however, and lie at the heart of the franchises themselves. Or should I say, lack thereof. Take a look at their most well known flagship, Assassin's Creed, and how pitiful it's storyline has been ever since the 3rd game; at this point there is not point getting these games to continue the story and reconnect with favourite characters, just to go sight seeing in whatever time period Ubisoft has picked next. Or how about the upcoming 'Beyond Good and Evil 2' which plans to divorce fans from their hero main character and have them take over some lifeless 'make you own character' avatar. (Showing that folks don't realize that is was the heart of BGE that made it so memorable.)

Maybe given time and enough effort, Ubisoft can start to reform this franchises into something as epic as they rightly should be. There's no reason why 'Assassin's Creed' shouldn't be as much of a landmark event as a new 'Final Fantasy', all it will take is time, talent and a bevy of creativity. For one, they could start by finally mixing Assassin's Creed and Watch Dogs into one mega franchise before fans get bored of speculating about when that's going to happen. Or they could just shift gears and start making brand new franchises from the ground up. (I'm throwing ideas at Ubisoft for free. Anymore are going to cost you, Yves.) Unfortunately, it's going to be a number of years before we see these policies have any serious effect on Ubisoft games, and we can only hope that the company haven't sunk into irrelevancy in that time. That's probably unlikely, but the gaming world does tend to move faster than any other medium (afterall, look what happened to Bethesda) so you never rightly know.

Celebrity Cameos

They're just like you or I

Let me be cynical for a second as I say that the easiest way to circumvent the process of creating an interesting and likeable character who is loved for all of their strong personality traits and/or driving goals, is to just replace all that with a celebrity cameo. Now, of course, that isn't always the case when it come to arrangements like this but it sure tends to be more often than not. Afterall, celebrities already have a following of some sort, must be innately likable in some way, and can draw a decent crowd to your project. This is the reason why big name actors now rule the Hollywood screens and why we see gaming studios drop big money to bring such talent over to this world.

I've always approached the fabled celebrity cameo with a healthy degree of skepticism as I try to figure out exactly what it is that the studios are trying to sell me. Even in the times when the cameo has worked out so well that you forget you're listening to the soothe vibrations of celebrity vocal cords, there is still a hint of exploitation behind the whole process that turns my stomach a little bit. The exercise must rake in some success, however, seeing as how video game studios are still giving it a swing as recently as this year. (It still isn't rampant as in main stream movies, though, so it can't be too profitable in the long run.)

I think that perhaps the most contemporary example of this is in Hideo Kojima's latest work, Death Stranding. (Light spoilers.) Some ripples have reverberated over the Internet in regards to this title and it's not just because of the fact that the game is as weird and wacky as people have been assuming it would be for all these years. Nor is it due to the occasional piece of out-of-place product placement that we see scattered around the game world. I think the biggest "What?" that seems to have been stemming from this game is the secret in which you can track down Conan O'Brien and have him give you a hat in the shape of an Otter. Now I could go into details of where you find him and the potential links that this appearance could have to his 'Clueless gamer' skits, but honestly does any of that really matter? Conan O'Brien's hologram shows up in a Hideo Kojima game. 'Nuff said.

When I forced myself into Gears of War fandom in order to keep up with everyone else's hype, the last thing I was expecting was for a rapper to turn up as one of the side characters in the latest entry. And yet, Gears of War 3's Aaron Griffin turned out to be exactly that as he was voiced and loosely modelled around Ice-T. Epic games were clearly proud of this particular collaboration as he was one of the hardest characters to unlock in that game's horde mode too, requiring players to make a stupid amount of money through playing the mode. (Enough to require several days worth of playtime to be dedicated exclusively to this mode.) Epic even reached out to Mr. T again (Not that Mr.T) when it came time for Borderlands 3. Or at least, I assume the Epic connection was the reason why Gearbox were saddled with bringing Ice into their game.

Ubisoft wanted to get onto this train this year with a game that I have covered a decent bit on this blog: Ghost Recon Breakpoint. If you remember, I mentioned how they wanted to make a big splash with the major villain of that game by modelling him and having him voiced by Jon Bernthal. Now Mr. Bernthal is a tremendous actor known for his roles in Walking Dead and the Punisher, and casting that man as a disgruntled ex-special forces terrorist seemed like actual dream casting. Unfortunately, this game was written by Ubisoft's games-as-a-service team and so they actually managed to bungle a script that literally wrote itself. Bernthal's Walker does what he can but there is only so much anyone can do with a generic, unfocused 'mad at the system' character who is, bizarrely, designed in such a way that the player can kill him off half way through the game and have the rest of the plot play out without him. (Doesn't that defeat the purpose of a mastermind?)

Mass Effect Andromeda is hardly a game that will go down in history for great characters and/or voice acting but I always keep it at the back of my mind for several odd reasons; one of which being the fact that it is currently listed on Natalie Dormer's IMDB page. That is because Bioware decided to cast her as the Tempest's medical office, Lexi T'Perro. This was clearly done in a way to capitalize off of her recent 'Game of thrones' fame and not to benefit the actress' talents, as was made apparent by the way that Bioware published several videos teasing her involvement whilst in game she played an extremely forgettable side character. Lexi hardly has any baring on the main narrative and even when she does get the chance to speak it is as cold and clinical as humanly possible. (I honestly can't remember if this character has an emotion in the entire game.) So when it comes down to a question of wasted talent, Mass Effect Andromeda knocked it out the park here, too.

The Saints Row series, known for the odd wink-and-nod to the audience, went above and beyond with their cameo when they announced that Keith David would be playing your vice president in Saints Row 4. This came alongside much fan fare and advertisement despite the fact that, as veterans of the franchise would know, Keith David already played a character in Saints Row lore; the original leader of the Saints: Julius. (And you can bet that the Devs didn't miss a chance to mention that in the game.) Keith David is placed front and center in this game as a main character and given plenty of material to be as funny as possible, making him one of the better examples of cameos that we can see in the world of gaming.

Of course, one can hardly talk about gaming cameos without bringing up the classic; GTA San Andreas. That is because San Andreas is a game that is practically dripping with cameos out of every orifice. (Such to the point where the term 'cameo' actually loses all meaning.) We're talking about a cast containing the likes of Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Penn, Ice-T (again), James Woods, Peter Fonda, David Cross, Danny Dyer, Frank Vincent and more I'm sure. What makes it even better; some of those characters I mentioned are actually reoccurring or main characters. None of these characters are celeb fodder and most of them use the talents of the actor to elevate a strong character into an unforgettable one. This is the reason why San Andreas' cast is still remembered as the best that Rockstar ever assembled. (Also the music tracks. They were great too.)

Oftentimes celebrities are used as a replacement for good writing, that's immutable, but occasionally something decent and interesting can come from it. For every time that CoD uses Kevin Spacey or Kit Harrington for forgettable stock villains, there are games like Fallout New Vegas who know exactly how to use one of their celeb stand in's, The Radio DJ: Mr Las Vegas; to make for a fitting subject, The Radio AI; Mr New Vegas. I suppose it's up to the consumer to decide if they find the very prospect insulting enough to hold it against the larger game, or if they'll at least keep an open mind up until their suspicions are confirmed.

Ubisoft Breakpointing it down.

I've heard about you and your honeyed words!

You know I enjoy these moments. I really do. Those times when a company has done something so bad that they feel the need to address it with a public statement and outline their plans to do better. In one way, it highlights the determination of the development team to not give up, heck, sometimes these posts can be really encouraging to read through. But let's be honest, most of the time they're just PR crap full of misdirections and mis-assumptions as to what they've done wrong. Just look at that 'Apex Legends' debacle earlier this year. (A situation that was eerily similar to Activision's recent controversy with COD Mobile's fixed rate loot boxes.) Expecting a corporate entity to learn from their mistakes and improve is like praying for Christmas snow in England. It already happened once this decade, you ain't getting it again.

I'd like to remind myself for a moment that I do hope for good things to come out of disasters like these. (At least I think I do.) The last thing anyone wants is for the companies in question to go into liquidation and fire all their talented staff and this is especially true in the gaming world. Everytime there is a colossal screw up in gaming, you'll find droves of people detailing exactly how these Devs can go about fixing their issues. Sure, messages tend to be at odd with one another every now and then, but that's why you hire a good Social Media manager to sort out the common points of contention and detail a battle plan for the team. (Huh, looks like I'm doing it now.) But, more often then not, the community's free advice gets wasted and companies are forced to scratch their heads and wonder why people aren't giving them money anymore. (What a mystery.)

With that in mind, let's talk about 'Ghost Recon: Breakpoint'. If you read my last blog on this game, you might remember how this game was a failure in almost every respect. The gameplay was neutered in order to serve a levelling system, the thing was riddled with bugs and every little item that one could find in the game could be purchased at a premium in the 'time savers store'. Due to a mistake from Ubisoft, the team accidentally shipped the review and launch copies of the games with all of the aggressive monetisation tactics that they had intended to ambush players with after launch, and as a result the game was met with considerable backlash from reviewers and enthusiast press. (Although in gaming those two groups tend to be one and the same.) Breakpoint did abysmally in the review department and folks like me now know that it's only a matter of weeks before the game is sub £20 on the shelves. (Although at this point I'm wondering if even that is too much.)

Now, usually this wouldn't be information worthy of a follow up. So the game reviewed badly, big whoop. It's still a AAA game made and published by a company who demands respect from the wider gaming community, (inexplicably) so it's probably not going to be too huge of a flop. Right? Wrong, apparently, as Breakpoint is probably going to go down in the books as Ubisoft's worst financial decision of 2019, costing the company in respect, sales and that all important revenue. In a recent financial report, the big man himself, ol' Yves Guillemot, revealed that "The critical reception and sales during the game's first weeks were disappointing." Now, there are no specific numbers there, but you can bet that things are looking rough for Ubisoft right now, especially with other ancillary news that has come out.

Perhaps you've heard of a little title known as Division 2. It is Ubisoft's follow up to their rough first foray in live services and now exists as their flagship representation of the model they want all their franchises to emulate. Assassin's Creed capitulated to this standard in Origins and even more so with Odyssey, and Breakpoint's biggest letdown was that it too fell to the lures of the live service model. (Those lures being the promise of heavy concurrency and a potentially unlimited revenue source.) So it's safe to say that Division 2 is currently Ubisoft's flagship game. But does that relate to strong sales? Well, it's hard to say definitively as Ubisoft seem unsure themselves. In May they complained that the game had not met sales expectations whilst in July they claimed that it was best selling game of the year. (So just what were your sales expectations, Ubisoft?) Now we have reason to believe that this disappointingly successful title was not enough to save Ubisoft from major markdowns to their annual fiscal expectations.

Originally, the fiscal year of 2019-20 was looking decent for Ubisoft with predicted operating profits reaching to 480 millions euros. Now predictions have been amended to somewhere within the range of 20-50 million euros; which is still more money than Sony Pictures made for the first half of this year, but still 'brown trousers' time for the budgeting team. Things didn't look any brighter when, following this report, Ubisoft's stock price fell 20%. (It has since risen back another 10%) Obviously, these are not the sorts of numbers that anyone wants to be seeing, least of all Investors, so the question on everyone's lips right now is; what went wrong? Well quite simply, everything. Breakpoint's failure of a launch actually translated into poor sales, every major Ubisoft release got delayed until the next fiscal year and public brand trust has taken a noticeable nose dive. So where does this leave Ubisoft? In a position where they need to make amends and start bringing players (And wallets) to Breakpoint whilst they wait for their next slate of AAA products to release. (Providing there are no more surprise delays.)

That brings us to Ubisoft's recent blog post entitled "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint: moving forward". (Hmm, invoking the spirit of 'Anthem' with that blog title probably isn't the best first touch there, Ubi.) In this post Ubisoft sought to reassure the community that they have a plan of action and shouldn't abandon the game in droves for better offers. (Like 'The Outer Worlds'. Which is great, by the by.) Thankfully, the team saw fit to divide the game into sections so it's easy for me to disseminate. (Oh will the wonders of coherent formatting never cease?)

Firstly, the team addressed the one issue that can be freely discussed without admitting to any corrupt influences on their end; technical difficulties. There isn't a great deal here to read into besides the fact that their scheduled title updates appear to be tackling issues in small chunks in order to get out sooner. A decent tactic in reassuring the players that the game is still alive, although it does make it appear like these fixes will be going on for the next few months before the game is decently playable for anyone without a super computer wrapped in ladybugs. (I made that reference off the cuff and now that I've realized why I said it, I'm too tickled to remove it. I pray to god you don't get it and if you do, don't judge me!)

Secondly the team spoke on post launch content, a very interesting topic of contention. When 'Anthem' was undergoing similar growing pains, the post launch was the first thing to get gutted as the team completely reprioritized to bug fixing and rebalancing. Ubisoft have confirmed that they are still right on track with their Raid and 'Terminator: The Dark Fate' cross-over event, so it seems they don't want to fall into the trap of appearing lackadaisical to the player base, however dwindling they may be. Although the quality and appeal of said content will be questionable since many of people's key concerns have been the way that the franchise was bastardized in order to accommodate for things like Raids and timed events.

Thirdly, and most importantly, the blog addressed the In-game economy. And, rather predictably, it is the shortest section here. All the team would commit to saying is that they have "Heard the criticism regarding the in-game economy." Oh, have you guys? Well, congratulations! Someone in the team posses the ability to access Reddit, what an accomplishment! The team explained that they are planning to make 'adjustments' in the next few weeks and then moved swiftly on before anyone could ask anything pertinent like: "What adjustments?" More likely than not the team will just shift some prices down and call it a day, actual change would require the team to admit their initial wrongdoings and have the integrity to try and do better. But gods knows nobody in the AAA landscape cares that much about their games. (At least, nobody with any actual power.)

The rest of the blog is mostly unimportant stuff about their delayed plans to introduce AI teammates (Which should never have been cut out from the game to start with) and their comments on people's reaction to the game design. Now you may think that latter point is of some significant relevance as they discuss the limitations of their current design and a desire in introduce a 'radical and immersive' version of the main game in the coming months. But I've seen enough of Ubisoft's machinations that I recognize them like I would an old friend. (If I actually had any friends, that is) So trust me when I say, nothing that Ubisoft plan to do with this game will fix the fundamental issues with it. It's just too lucrative not to rely on the store. Even if they do rework everything and remove those annoying pointless levels, it'll be in a tacked-on extra mode with enough severe restrictions slapped on that you are forced to return to the main game grind. (My predictions are that they will bar you from Online content and raids in such a mode.)

As dismissive as I have been, and am being, to Ubisoft and their words, I do appreciate that the team took the effort to talk to the community. A lot of other companies in similar positions would simply shut down and ignore any and all criticism, (See: Bethesda.) but at least Ubisoft had the courage to acknowledge and respond. Of course, being a progeny from a long line of career cynics, I don't believe these words will translate to substantial action (That is to say: action that will achieve positive change to the game) but I'll never turn my nose to an opportunity for some inoffensive lip service. I'm not sure if any of this will be enough to bring people back to Ubisoft as they slug it out through this difficult financial time, but I know that the company will still find a way to manage even if it doesn't. That Yves is a fighter, afterall, he wouldn't let the company sink on his watch. (Would he?)

P.s. Of course he wouldn't. Heck, I don't even think the monetary situation is that dire, truth be told. But it makes for fun reading. wait, did I just say that the potential financial downturn of a company is "fun"? Poor choice of words. 'Interesting'? Nah. 'Facinating'? Hmm...

Brokepoint: The murder of Ghost Recon.

Oh, Looks like I've still got the puns!

Seeing as how misery and hatred fills my existence, it only makes sense that I look upon the face of a game that disappointed me and give out a "You were the chosen one!" type blog. So who has earned my ire today? Be it our old foes over at EA? Or maybe our former heroes in Bethesda? Neither. It was those derivative fools that I always said were not worthy for praise, those whom were only applauded for being the lesser of evils. Well, guess what? Now they've joined the ranks of the greatest of evils, and all I can say is: I told you so! That's right, today we are taking a look at the autopsy of 'Ghost Recon: Breakpoint' and building our case against it's likely assailant; Ubisoft.

For those who are unaware, I was extremely excited for this game when it was first announced. The second I saw that Ubisoft had reached out to the incredibly talented Jon Bernthal to star in their game, I practically squee-ed with how perfect the casting was. (I was so excited that I conveniently forgot how genuinely pitiful Ubisoft's character writers are.) The previous entry, Wildlands was a game I picked up late but fell head over heels for, in how simple it was to play. It felt like an incredibly casual tactical stealth experience, and whilst some others (and myself, if I'm being honest) might have preferred something more challenging, I was enthusiastic about the prospect of a game so easy-to-pickup that I could share it with my non-stealth addict friends. (If I had friends.) Or just pick it up whist binging the latest series of Arrow. (God, I'm a shambles.)

Last month I got to take my first look at what Ubisoft had lined up for Breakpoint and my enthusiasm... wavered. On one hand, the Devs had taken advantage of their expanded team and influence to craft a game with slivers of MGS to it. (That's pretty amazing on it's own!) Stalking through the jungle was vastly improved, AI had actually been programmed this time around and gunfights were punishing enough to encourage you to actively avoid them. On the other hand, the game looked to have been primed for becoming a microtransaction cesspit. All of the game's arsenal had been co-opted into pseudo-MMO equipment levelling system, with each gun being beholden to scrap material and currency to 'improve'. Mobile-esque rarities had been haphazardly shoved into the mix, encouraging the endless grind against that most prevalent of modern video game foes: 'The Algorithm'! And even in the Closed Beta we could see that the character menu tabs had one specially reserved tab labelled 'Store'. At the time it only sold access to the pre-order for the main game, but it didn't take a great degree of imagination to imagine the evil it could be used for.

How impressive would it have been for Ubisoft to take all of these concerns and wash them aside by delivering a game so solid that it stood on it's own rights without having to succumb to predatory monetisation. How the crowds would have cheered their name and said "Wow Ubisoft, you guys really are a inspiration to the industry! I mean, your first-party games are often uninspired and derivative of themselves, but at least you aren't trying to wring every last penny from your consumers like Ebenezer Scrooge." As you can imagine, this wouldn't come to be. Last week, Ubisoft dropped their long awaited tactical follow-up and, what do you know, there's monetisation up the wazoo.

"Okay, but how bad are things really?" You may be wondering. Pretty darn bad. Firstly, you'll find that most of the coolest cosmetics in the game (the one's that were simply labelled as 'unavilable' in the Beta) are completely locked behind a paywall. "You want to play dress-up as the game's special units; the Wolves? Pay us more money on top of the £60 that the game cost." Those weapons that need to be supplied with resources in order to be levelled up? Yeah, you can just buy those upgrades. They even repeated some of the most avaricious mistakes from Wildlands (Why wouldn't they?) like charging players for ability to pick up weapon's accessories. Yes, technically you earn these items in game so, if you are an absolute cretin of a human in desperate need of euthanizing, you could call these 'time savers'. However, Ubisoft even managed to push those too far when it comes to skill points. Indeed, one can find themselves buying skill points for the game's skill tree with an little bit of under-the-table bribe action, except, this isn't really under-the-table anymore now is it? If you are confused as to what the issue is here, let me explain. In Breakpoint your character, their skills and their weapons, are carried on through all of the activities in the game. That means everything you earned is shared through the single player, upcoming raids and competitive multiplayer. By allowing some players to buy skillpoints you have given them the chance to forgo playing through activities to earn their new weapons and abilities and allowed them to pay for an advantage. (What is commonly known in the industry as 'pay-to-win')

Even in a world post the release of 'Joker', this is still the most depressing and cynical thing that I have witnessed all year. Ubisoft are actively trying to sell us every aspect of their game on top of the game itself. Essentially allowing consumers to pay for the game again in order to save themselves from the effort of actually having to play through their purchase. (Here's an idea Ubisoft, how about saving as all from that heartache by cancelling the game and just going into liquidation, that way you could even positively effect the industry!) Perhaps I sound a little incensed about this situation, or more-so than usual, and I most certainly am. I have had a pretty crappy past few months, heck, a crappy past couple of years, and all I have to get me through my daily trash is video games. Yeah, you could label that as an unhealthy dependency, but it makes me actually happy so I'll pleasantly ignore such insinuations. Or at least, they used to make me happy. When this avaricious plague starts to infect my spectrum of games, I take it as a personal insult. And I would be happy to spit in the eye of the next insect who crawls out of Ubisoft's dungeon to hiss about "time savers" and "player choice". (I'm not sure if I have to specify how that was a joke. But I will, just to be sure.)

But the story doesn't end there. You see, we have since received an official response from Ubisoft through their professional patsy; the community manager. On the 4th, on the official Ubisoft forums, a fellow called UbiBorghal decided to offer himself up as the sacrificial lamb in front of the Internet. The post started with a detailing of the core philosophies of the Breakpoint team, and this is worth a giggle at, if nothing else:

From the beginning, two key factors stood out as extremely important for the team.

1. That Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint doesn’t include any pay-to-win elements.
2. To make sure that players not choosing to engage with in-game purchases do not see their experience affected. Players will be able to unlock skills and get access to plenty of varied loot & items by simply playing the game.

From the outset this seems like a very heartfelt affirmation for the community to take solace in, however, perhaps this message may have held a little more weight before the game released. You know, before we could see all the ways in which both of those 'important factors' were disregarded and violated. Firstly, the pretense that the game should not include any pay-to-win elements is so laughable that I can't even be bothered to refute it. (Besides, I sort-of already did.) As for the 'player's should not see their experience effected.' I'll remind you of the several cosmetic unlocks that the game dangles in front of the player only to slap them in the face with a hard paywall. Then there is the fact that the main hub-area for the game is a social-online space that you are unable to opt-out of. This means that everytime you go back to craft new weapons or accept story critical missions, you have to mingle with other players, and I'll bet that the matchmaking will go out of it's way to shack up non-spenders with heavy spenders. (Although Ubisoft will never out and admit it, cockroaches that they are.) That way people will forever be seeing content that they are unavailable to access and be encouraged to pony up. All that isn't even taking into account the fact that players could end up getting steamrolled, in the competitive online, by other players who buy all the skillpoint packs and weapon upgrades.

UbiBorgal then explained that the systems would be removed. Apparently their implementation in the first place was a mistake that only became known due to the 'early access' period of the game. Another lie from Ubisoft, on two fronts. First, the game wasn't 'early access' you just released it on the actual shipping date for those that paid £30 extra and delayed it 3 days for everyone else. Secondly, these microtransactions were 100% intentional. The team just misjudged how much backlash they would receive from the systems and decided to backtrack. If you don't believe me, then how about you take a look at the team's own words; "some Time-Savers items (Skill Point bundles, XP Boosters, parts bundles for advanced weapon upgrades) were available for purchase for a few hours in our Store- These items were designed as an optional way for players arriving later to the game (Post-Launch) to catch up with those who have been playing for longer" Yep, not only are Ubisoft entirely unrepentant for their transgressions, they straight-up admitted that these pay-to-win mechanics are still on the slate to be released later on. That means, even if you believe their half-assed excuses (Which I don't) then they've admitted to attempting to circumvent review criticism by unveiling their worst monetisation attacks after the initial release (and the bulk of reviews) have passed. Once again, we are left with a situation in which the team's only defence is "We weren't lying guys, we're just incompetent. Oh sure, we intended to lie, but we were too stupid to pull it off." Talk about being between a rock and a hard place.

I am very proud to announce, however, that this time these pathetic corporate antics have come around to slap these companies in the face, and boy do they deserve it. Perhaps it comes from the active (failed) attempt to deceive them, but reviewers are refusing to give this game a break on terms of score. Look up 'Breakpoint review' on Google and the first three scores that you are presented with (The three most influential scores on the Internet right now) read thusly; PC Gamer: 40%, Games Radar: 2.5/5 and Gamespot 4/10. Ouch. Dive deeper and you'll find other reviewers like Eurogamer, very much wearing their hearts on their sleeve as they entitle their review "A limp lifeless spin on the Ubisoft formula." Huh, it's almost like everything that I've been saying since Far Cry 4 has started to dawn on the rest of the gaming community... I'm not calling all of Ubisoft hacks, but those in charge most certainly are, and it looks like their bad decisions are finally starting to catch up to them. Do you think this trend of harsh reviews will end with Breakpoint? Remember that every Ubisoft game is essentially the same game with one new mechanic. (and world-class environment designers who really deserve better.) Now that the community has drawn blood they aren't going to rest until Ubisoft really start dedicating their considerable resources and manpower to truly change things up. (Although, I wouldn't be surprised if Ubisoft's higher-ups can't even remember how to pull that off anymore.)

For a long time now I was seriously considering picking up this game fresh and have it become by new go-to game. (I've been missing out on one for a year now) But, needless to say, that won't be happening now. At this point, my money is going elsewhere, (Likely towards 'The Outer Worlds', so I may have a review of that impending.) and I doubt I'm the only one who has come to the same conclusion. It may seem like a small act of defiance to opt-out of engagement, but this is the only statement of power that we have as consumers, and if enough of us act it has a real chance to change things. Insider rumors suggest that Activision, of all people, held a conference after the backlash over their exclusive Modern Warfare mode led to a rash of cancelled pre-orders. I'm not saying that anything will come from that meeting, or that something similar will happen at Ubisoft, just that things 'could' happen, and that's worth a little abstinence on behalf of consumers, isn't it? We'll see if management end up learning anything from this nonsense, but, personally, I don't hold high hopes. As I wrap up I have nothing more to say except: Get your bloody house in order, Guillemot!
The shreds of my conscience tell me to add;  I do not, and would never. condone any harm being acted upon those at Ubisoft. They may have killed this game, but let their punishment be a punch in the only place that it matters; their wallet.

Let me talk about Weapon Personalisation for way too long.

I call it my boomstick.

Personalisation and customization seems to be becoming increasingly important in recent years. Modern gamers are beginning to truly value the ability to roleplay, either as themselves or someone exotic. It's got to such a point that game publishers are gearing their entire monetisation schemes towards cosmetics rewards, fully aware of how important they are for gamers, whilst downplaying the whole movement publicly. You know things are serious when huge multimillion dollar companies are trying to control and market it. But I'm not here today to talk about general cosmetics, but something small, minimalist even, I'm talking about the customization that is applied to the humble gun. (Or sword.)

Weapons are, in many ways, your closest confidants in many action-based video games. Families die, friends move on, but your weapon will stick with you through thick and thin and expect nothing in return. (Except maybe a repair every now and then) With this in mind, it makes sense that gamers find themselves getting attached to their inanimate tools of destruction and seek to personalize them. Make them look as special as they feel in our hearts. This can include recolouring them, adding attachments, changing the name, tying a little ribbon around the barrel, sleeping with it at night- (Okay, let's not go quite that far.)

Weapon customization systems are borne from the same vat of philosophy that ushered the concept of mod support into the world. When you allow players to express their creativity on a digital canvas, they automatically feel more connected to that game world as they have expended a part of themselves into it. With cosmetic gun skins and attachments, developers can allow players to have a little taste of shaping the world they are living in. You may think I'm making this sound more magical than it is, but I assure you that it is the little things that make a game click; gun customization may be a little thing, but it counts for a whole lot.

Today I'm going to pick out and go over some of my favourite weapon customization systems from the games that I play. Do note, that I only count weapon systems that visually effect the look of the weapon because, in this day and age, for a AAA studio to provide a system that offers anything less (as they frequently do) is pretty darn lackluster. Also, I've tried to pick out systems that go beyond useful, stat effect, upgrades and allow for meaningless visual overhauls. Because it's mechanics like those that really show off a developers dedication to the 'little details'.

First let me start by covering, or should I say 'recovering', (Wait, no, that means something else) the game that I played not too recently: 'Ghost Recon: Breakpoint'. Just to recap, Ghost Recon is a game series under the Tom Clancy umbrella, and so focuses on highly accurate American military strategy and terminology. In such an environment, it is easy to see how naturally weapon's maintenance and modifications can become a part of that game world. The two recent games in particular, Breakpoint and Wildlands, focus on a small, self perpetuating, unit; so non-standard issue weapon decals fit in a bit more. (What Uncle Sam doesn't find out about ain't gonna hurt him, am I right?)

Wildlands and Breakpoint both feature a dedicated screen towards weapon modification that is known as 'the Gunsmith'. From that menu, weapons can be taken apart and fiddled with in as much detail as Ubisoft could get away with without boring people. That means that you can rip out the magazines, change the stock, re-lengthen the barrel, switch sights and slap on an under barrel of your choosing. All very practical upgrades that are probably military approved. Of course, then you get the ability to paint each independent component in whatever garish colour you please. A rainbow gun is possible and very much encouraged. Legendary weapons even came with their own ridiculous skin out of the box so that your enemies could know the doom they have incurred at a glance. Oh, how they trembled in fear when they saw my 'London Calling' sniper with it's Union Jack painted on the side. (Truly the stuff of nightmares!)

One popular action-game developer has been getting into the weapon customization trend lately. In both of their last two games, Rockstar have implemented some form of gun tinkering to degrees both rudimentary and... slightly more indepth. Both Grand Theft Auto V and Red Redemption 2 seem like perfect worlds to accommodate such options too. GTA's Los Santos serves as a mirror to the superficiality of modern society, hence it's basis on Los Angeles and Hollywood. GTA is all about vanity and shallowness, just blown to it's absolute extremes, so it definitely fits for the psychotic citizens of LS to be running around with brightly coloured 'individualised' guns. RDR's 2's  5 states, on the other hand, is a haven of lawlessness that hearkens back to the classic spaghetti westerns. (And surpasses them on many aspects.) Honestly, I can imagine Sam and Dan watching the gun store scene from 'The good, the bad and the ugly' and thinking "We need that!"

In Grand Theft Auto, you can mosey into any licensed gunnery in Los Santos to trick out you gun. The selection is very simple however, no attachments, no upgrades, just a full spray paint. They didn't even start adding fun patterns until a few years down the line (and exclusively through GTA Online.) You could see that the customization focus was more on the cars and clothing. In Red Dead, however, one needs only to drive down to their local gun store and they'll find a whole host of options. Actual practical upgrades are still pretty slim pickings, but cosmetic customization runs deep. You can alter the grain of the wood, the material of the metal, add a leather sheath, slap on a scope and even carve in an engraving. Anything you need to make that gun your own.

On the RPG side, one company has seen the light of cosmetic enhancements in recent years, and that company would be Bethesda. Although Fallout 4 might have been lacking in some of the fundamental faux-social aspects that makes a authentic RPG world, they made up for it when it came to weapon mods. Fallout's world is the perfect environment for weapon mods, also, considering the whole 'cobbled together' aesthetic that it exudes. Those who have to scavenge in order to survive the harsh realities of the wasteland probably wouldn't think twice about getting creative with their weapons, and in Fallout 4 it finally showed.

Obsidian's 'Fallout: New Vegas' introduced weapon mods as big expensive improvements that altered the look, and sometimes the fundamental function, of your weapon. (A big deal back in 2010.) Fallout 4 re-imagined the concept as a whole system that was more casual, cheap and widely used. You often found that raiders had cobbled together makeshift scopes and magazine extenders, it a little detail that really helped enrich the world. Mods truly came to shine with a whole new category of gun that Bethesda built solely for Fallout 4: pipe weapons. Pipe weapons are entirely homemade guns that are so modular that a little tinkering can change a pistol in a machine gun. (Now that's customisable!) Also, Fallout 4 allowed players to name their weapons, which every gun-centric game should do and the fact that they don't keep's me up at night. (Or maybe it's the excessive gaming. Nah, it's the gun thing.)

Another RPG developer that stepped into the weapon customization ring is the once-famed company: Bioware. Back in the day, Bioware wowed us with cleverly written and presented narratives, endearing characters and rich, infinitely explorable, worlds. Recent years have seen them lose a lot of key members of staff, including writers, so they have had to find other aspects of RPG to make their niche. (They're still working on that. But they'll get there. Eventually.) Once such aspect that received attention around the time of 'Dragon's Age: Inquistion' is the weapon crafting system. A robust gear creation system that was lifted, almost in it's entirety, for 'Mass Effect: Andromeda'.

In 'Inquistion', the titular Inquisitor is expected to source all of his/her own materials in order to put their gear together, (Despite being lord-commander of an army of crusade-hungry zealots) but being the source guy does mean that you get final say when it comes to looks. As you put every weapon together from scratch, Bioware decided to implement a module system in which you stuck together a pommel, haft and blade to create a weapon that looked exactly how you wanted. (A great idea for a game world that has a history for being lacking in exciting art design.) Also, you could name the final weapon. (Yay!) Mass Effect: Andromeda's version wasn't quite as module, put you could still design each weapon to function in whatever way was most useful. Unfortunately, I didn't have any spare images of such a gun, so you get an image displaying the range of visual character customization. (Again, don't have cornrows. Only in video games.)

So far I have covered a whole lot of games in which the inclusion of weapon customization seems to fit, heck, they almost feel like natural inclusions. However, if one game has to take the award for most unnecessary, but appreciated, weapon personalisation system, it's 'Metal Gear Solid V: Phantom Pain'. MGS is a series that follows military fiction, similar to Tom Clancy, but they merely use that as a vehicle to tackle various social-political issues in crazy, over the top situations. A lot of the time the rampant use of violence to solve problems is reflected to be an ineffectual solution; sometimes tainting the situation, or the person, more than it ultimately solved anything. So with that in mind, why would they dedicate an entire system to the beautification of one the symbols of warfare: the gun? If I were to guess, Konami made them, but at least the old Kojima Productions didn't half-ass it.

In 'Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker' Snake made use of his paramilitary army to develop tools for the field. Again, Snake has to provide the resources and plans, but with some of space age tech that the guys at MSF put together, you can forgive the legwork. (Although I can't fathom why they needed blueprints, experience and manpower to craft a cardboard box with a picture of a Japanese Gravure Idol plastered to one side.) 'Phantom Pain' expanded upon this by allowing the players to unlock a 'workbench' mode within the R&D department. From here you had the ability to throw on attachments and spray paints with enough versatility to rival Ghost Recon. (Maybe that was the intention.)

I should probably wrap this up before I end up on some government watchlist for 'people who write about guns excessively'. (I'm already on enough of their watchlists as it is.) I've just always loved games that allow you to take things and make them your own, and what else is more important than your trusty firearm. Moving into the future, I expect customization options to become more and more infrequent. (Or should I say, 'free' customization options.) I noted how Breakpoint is already selling gun paints in their store for in-game currency, although I'll bet that they lock some behind some premium currency once the full game launches. It is disappointing to see something so fun cut up and sold at a premium, but I suppose that is the way that all cool things end of going eventually. I guess it's a reality we're just going to have to start accepting. They just better not start charging me for red dot sights or we're going start having real problems!

Breaking the point.

Ah nuts, I'm running out of puns.

Seeing as how yesterday I covered the mechanics behind Ghost Recon: Breakpoint and how I felt about them, I decided to dive a bit more into the gameplay this go around. I may not be the most storied Ghost Recon fan in the world, but I have played Wildlands exhaustively so I'm familiar with the journeys of Nomad's squad and Karen Bowman. Therefore I'm excited to see how this story will evolve now that the team have decided to take a more traditional, revenge-approach. This article will contain spoilers for Wildlands and the very beginning of Breakpoint.

For those who never played Wildlands, that game didn't have so much of a story as it did an overarching plot; the disruption of the Santa Blanca cartel. To that end, the main character; Nomad, and his team of Ghosts; Weaver, Midas and Holt, team up with CIA operative Karen Bowman to conduct an extra-judiciary ousting of the cartel regime. As Santa Blanca had essentially taken over Bolivia, players had to systematically deconstruct the cartel by killing off important players, distributing specific areas of business, and just making life hell for the head honcho; El Sueno. Along the way you discover that the inciting incident of this whole affair, the bombing of the Bolivian embassy, was actually conducted as a rogue action by, recently deceased, Special Agent Ricky Sandoval. That was his attempt at getting the US to pay attention to the cartel, and it worked.

The cost of this revelation is unclear, but it seems to bring peace to Karen, who went to Bolivia looking to avenge Ricky's death. (If you fail to find this nugget of information, you get the bad ending where Karen gets herself arrested by shooting down Sueno in cold blood.) The Ghosts dismantle the entire cartel single handedly but are unable to finish the big guy as he cuts a deal for immunity and is escorted back to The States. Technically, this is where the story ends, but seeing as how the game was supported with two DLC's and three events, I suppose the team went back to Bolivia to... hang around for a couple years. I dunno.

Their next adventure followed an unnamed agent (Who has the same mannerisms, voice actor and training as Nomad. So lets just call them, Nomad.) Who infiltrates a group of car smuggling adrenaline junkies (and/or actual junkies) to bring in their leader. It's as campy as it sounds and not too interesting. Then Bolivia is taken over by some paramilitary types who's only goal in life seems to be to annoy players who are reliant on the drone (moi) with their damn drone jammer units. They last in Bolivia for all of a week before being deposed. The rest of the content is kinda more crossover events than story addendums, but I think they're still fun to talk about.

The first few events were fun, wacky and short. One had you hunting a supernaturally gifted sniper in the snowy province. (This one didn't communicate solely through humming unfortunately.) Then there was the one that tasked Nomad with hunting down El Tio, a demon of sorts. (Which turned out to be a dude in a demon mask) Then there was the Predator... in Bolivia. Yup. No tricks, no men in masks. The Predator just showed up for an event. (That mission was a doozey.) After that Ubisoft got an idea when it came to presenting Wildlands. They realized that, due to it's success, it was the perfect game for casuals to be introduced to the world of Tom Clancy, so they used the game as a staging ground to introduce the Tom Clancy Cinematic Universe. Or would that be 'Interactive Universe'.

Firstly, Sam Fisher turned up to hunt down Intel on a CIA agent who defected with important info... to Bolivia. (Why everyone gravitated towards the single most dangerous country in South America at the time is beyond me.) Then there was the Rainbow Six crossover which had the Ghosts teaming up with French operative Twitch to track down the infamous Caveira who went AWOL... in Bolivia. There the team found out little snippets of Siege lore, like how the Brazilian Caveira is tracking down her delinquent brother... who is apparently Bolivian. (Huh.)

After that came a crossover with 'Ghost Recon: Future Soldier', a 2012 war game set in the near future and yet is somehow still chronologically ahead of us. That mission involved Nomad's team meeting with members of HUNTER squad, like Scott Micheal and John Kozak, and preventing the detonation of a dirty bomb. Finally, there was Operation Oracle (That's cute) which pretty much just set-up the events for Breakpoint. It introduced as to Cole Walker, established that he has a 'blame-everyone-else' problem, and introduces us to the concept of battle drones. (Thematically though, there's no way that the team would take the time to actually program a working combat drone into Wildlands. Who do you think these people are, Game Designers?)

All this sets the stage for Breakpoint. Nomad is dispatched with a team of thirty ghosts to the (fictional) archipelago of Auroa, home to genius inventor and military contractor; Jace Skell, in order to discover why the island went off the grid. Why the US government decided to deploy a Platoon of experienced tier-one operatives to figure out why Skell stopped answering his phone is beyond me. Of course, seeing as how 4 ghosts manage to turn a country over in the last game, it's only fair that this game starts off with all the helicopters being shot down and Nomad crawling out the wreckage with a 'sole survivor' badge and a whole new voice actor.

From what I have played so far (Alongside the copious amounts of interviews I have watched regarding the game.) it seems that the paradise of Auroa has come under the control of a paramilitary group called, Sentinel, who appear to harbour some, as-of-yet unknown, nefarious agenda. This takeover was assisted, at least partially, by former Ghost operative Cole Walker. (Played by and modelled after the talented Jon Bernthal) Cole is now leading a group of, almost supernaturally, coordinated soldiers that call themselves: Wolves. (Hah! Because Karen called him a wolf in Operation: Oracle. I get it!) Cole introduces himself in grand fashion once he (Super mega spoilers here!) shows up to the wreck and executes Holt. Wait, no, he survives. Was it Midas? No... it was the black one... Ah, Weaver! It was Weaver! Huh, guess the black guy does always die first... (As you can tell, I'm really torn up over it.)

With this story event, we get introduced to our first significant new mechanic, injuries. Sometimes in Breakpoint, you'll find yourself getting shot, (I know, I was surprised too.) and every once in a blue moon this will result in the character sustaining an injury. In this state you will find that the character limps about the place, is less accurate, and just becomes an all-round less intimidating opponent. To rectify this, players first need to get out of 'alert' stage (through running or hiding) and then patch themselves up, Far Cry style. (Only you won't find any protruding bones as far as I've seen.) This little feature is one the ways that Breakpoint attempt to simulate the act of battlefield survival without becoming a survival game. Although I will say, on the hardest difficulty (Which is obviously the only difficulty I'll play on.) you'll find this mechanic rarely comes into play, because you die before you can roll that crit fail.

Some of the other survival mechanics are a bit more apropos for the difficulty junkies like myself. One such feature is the all new camp system that allows you to set up a small staging area on the field. In the lore of the world, these camps are called 'Bivouac's which, despite being a real term, sounds stupid so I will continue to call them 'camps'. When you settle at one of these camps, you have the opportunity to spawn a vehicle, change your preset loadout, give yourself an hour-long buff and set the time of day that you want to depart in. This is also the spot in which you can do crafting for some of the game's consumables, which I'm sure will become incredibly necessary in the later stages. (Also the animation to set up the camp takes way too long currently. Minor gripe.)

The camp doesn't just take the place of a hub area, as I mentioned yesterday, Ghosts have a home in the makeshift community of Erewhon. (I can't imagine why they called it that, but then I can't imagine why you would move to an archipelago run my a mega-rich guy with a god complex in the first place.) Erewhon serves as the connective tissue between the single player and the multiplayer, by allowing players to meet and squad up, launch the competitive ghost war, or prep for those raids that will come out sometime after launch.

You can also delve into the full breadth of the gear system from within this cavern, due to the friendly vendor lady who is happy to supply the special forces soldiers fighter for their freedom... for a price. Yesterday I mentioned my considerable misgivings towards this aspect of the game, but today I'll try to look at the thing objectively and maybe find some positives. For one, the inclusion of gear buffs does add a layer to equipment planning that is sure to become essential for those raids. And this new 'leveled gear' regime means that you are encouraged to constantly try out new guns, rather than just finding something you like and sticking with it. (It's not my fault that I got the Desert HTI straight away in Wildlands, but you bet I never put it down for the rest of the game.) Luckily, none of this new gear system manages to have an effect on customization, outside of the fact that the, aforementioned, vendor lady hoards all the paint schemes. (What did she do, issue a patent on them?)

Character customization was at a little bit of risk now that players were required to put on bits of armour to stay alive. How could Nomad spend the entire game as a plaid-shirt lumberjack if he was expected to wear a ballistic vest? Luckily, Ubisoft borrowed from the idea that was popularized (and maybe innovated by, I'm not sure) DC Universe Online. Essentially, when you pick up new gear, you unlock it's visual style but you can switch that style without affecting the equipment itself. This allows you to look as badass, or as casual, as you want without opening yourself up to ballistics. Plus, it helps you to bridge the gap of mental logic that is telling me that the backwards cap I just unlocked is more protective then the ballistic helmet from a couple hours ago.

With weaponry, you have all the breadth of the first game's gunsmith options. That means the ability to throw on cool attachments, spray paint the whole thing, and individually spray paint each component. This allows you to turn that cool new rare assault rifle you picked up from that image above to the one below. (I had limited time and resources, don't make fun of me!) The new gunsmith also gives us the ability to spend some of the crafting components, (That are acquired through questing, pick ups and equipment scrapping) and spend them towards general stat improvements to that gun. (Improvements that affect all models of that gun, so you don't need to worry about wasting components on low level gear.) With the right perks and enough components, you can even upgrade your shiny gun to mark 2, which does something I'm sure, I wasn't paying too much attention.

"But what is the point of all this high level gear?" You may be thinking. "You keep alluding to some difficult threat, but how difficult can it be to fight mercs who all consistently die to headshots?" Well, first of all, high level folks walk around with bulletproof helmets. Secondly, there is much more to worry about on these islands than plain old fleshy meatbags. Certain points of the map will be highlighted with a marker to indicate that it is the hunting ground of some massive robotic titan. These beasts are huge tanks that require planning, or a whole lot of firepower, to put down. If your gear level doesn't match them, there isn't even any point approaching them. The game supports this with a message telling you how badly you messed up and what level you should be at before coming back round these parts. I know that at least one of the raid bosses will be another huge drone, (That flies!) so I think that the 'gear level' mechanic exists more for bullet spongy robots than for your common grunts.

That's just about everything that I have managed to glean from my time with Breakpoint. There is still another day of the closed Beta left, but unless they unlock ghost war by surprise, I don't think I'll see anything new. I will say that I am certainly happy with the amount of content that they have teased us with. I worked to earn those faction-tied Battle Rewards, and only just finished them after 3 days of play. I can only imagine how much more content will be available when the full reward system opens at launch. Again, this game is designed from the ground up to be a time sink, but if the core gameplay is enjoyable enough that doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. As a Metal Gear nut, I never miss an opportunity to channel my inner Solid Snake, and if this game with give me endless opportunities to do so, I'm going to happily put in the time. As long as the final product lives up to the promise I've seen in this Beta (Without the bugs, hopefully) then I think stealth/military shooter fans might be in for a real treat come October. (Which is next month, good god!)