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!)

Breaking the seal of Breakpoint.

Try before you buy

Colour me surprised that, for the past two days, I have been able to play the Ghost Recon:Breakpoint Closed Beta. I haven't even taken the liberty to pre-order the game (As I am usually uninclined to do so.) but I suppose Ubisoft took a look at my substantial playtime for the Wildlands and decided to throw me a bone. Whatever the reason, I have been able to delve into this intriguing title to get an idea of what to expect from the full game as well formulate an idea of what the post launch content might be. What I discovered pretty quickly is that this game is quite unlike the one before it in many substantial ways, let's take a look.

First, let me reiterate, 'Ghost Recon: Breakpoint' is a fundamentally different game to Wildlands in many aspects, except from with it's core stealth-based gameplay. As an incredibly huge fan of the stealth genre, as you would likely know if you spent any amount of time around this blog, this gameplay is basically catnip to me and can do no wrong. The only substantial difference I've noticed is a positive, enemy AI seems to be a whole lot more advanced than they were in Wildlands. Once you get spotted, you can expect the soldiers of this private military force, Sentinel, to hunt you down in groups and even use their special skills to get the better of you. I've had units flush me out with mortar fire before picking me off with a sniper. These guys could run circles around the Santa Blanca (But can they idle about singing the 'Santa Blanca' song all day? I think not.)

The differences come in the core makeup of the game and it's systems, and I find myself torn with my reception towards them. This is a game that is built from the ground up to be a 'live service' in every aspect, and that is always an approach to game design that will worry me. True, the first game had 'live service' elements, but they always felt like addendums to the main experience that focused more around luring people back with events, rather than tempting them not to leave with 'recurrency incentives'. On one hand, I know how exploitable these kind of systems have been in the past, whilst on the other hand, Ubisoft have never been the kind of developers who push the envelope in that regard, (Or indeed, in any regard.) so this appears to be a situation of wait and see.

I think that the most immediately noticeable difference between Wildlands and Breakpoint is the way that the latter treats it's weapons, what I like to call 'The mobilization of items.' In Breakpoint you don't just unlock a gun and that's it, you find several different copies of that same gun with differing stats that are linked to your level. (That's right. Ubisoft have found a way to add looter shooter mechanics to Ghost Recon.) Weapons and armour are assigned different rarity tiers (With higher rarity items offering extra buffs) and better items are given a 'tier value' so that players can instantly know what weapon is better without cross referencing stats and picking which value corresponds better with their play style.

Borderlands 3 has implemented a similar system but there it makes a little bit more sense, that game is imbued with millions of randomly generated weapons, so any system that makes picking through them easier would certainly be useful to some gamers. On the other hand, such systems have the effect of degrading weapons into little more than number values and robbing each of their unique properties. I find myself swapping a 50 cal sniper for a 308. simply due to a higher assigned number rather than the need for an increased fire rate, and that seems rather antithetical to the 'military fantasy' dynamic that Tom Clancy games are geared towards. This also means that there is another bloody video game crafting system, because god knows we don't have enough of those! 

The intention with these systems are clear, Ubisoft intend to create a system wherein you can continue to collect weapons and equipment to relative perpetuity, but that does detract from the casual atmosphere of Wildlands. In Wildlands, you could theoretically beat the entire game with starter gear and that made everything you collected along the way a bonus. In Breakpoint, I can already imagine a scenario in which you are forced to scavenge camps and the like to put together enough rare gear to stand up to a particularly powerful drone. This type of 'level gating' is exactly the kind of thing that people knocked the later Assassin's Creeds for.

Another 'live service' element that has me worried is the inclusion of a brand new Hub area called Erewhon. Like Zion, without all the sweaty dancing, Erewhon is a makeshift homestead for the survivors of Auroa to congregate. Whenever you find yourself here in the game, you'll also find the cave packed with other players going about their day. This makes the Hub feel similar to Destiny's Tower; a place where players can see each others skins but not actually interact. It feels like a pointless exercise in interconnectivity to make the player feel that the world is online when it really is instanced.

Inside of Erewhon, you will find the majority of quest givers, the lady who is holding down the fort until Raids launch, and a fellow who hosts the 'Ghost War' competitive multiplayer content. (Ghost War was unavailable for the Beta.) Alongside all of this, players will find a storefront from which they can buy skins, emotes, icons, banners, weapons (built from blueprints), and summonable vehicles. So far, everything I have seen has been of reasonable price and is only purchasable through in game currency, but I find myself wondering how long that will be the case. I noticed how the start menu already has a tab for a store, although right now it only contains a link to pre-order the game, I wonder how bad the microtransactions will end up being.

 But I won't pretend that everything is doom and gloom, what I have seen of the game so far (although sans monetisation) appears to be fun enough. Weapon customisation is back and appears to be as robust as ever and character customisation is still... adequate. They still give as the 'Choose a face' mechanic which automatic ties skin colour to the face chosen. (Which is just great when you happen to be mix race with differing facial features.) but the choice to apply face paint now means that I can just hide my face anyway, so no harm no foul.

I'm also a big fan of the new enemy types that promise to mix up gameplay, hopefully without making every encounter unbearable nearer to the end. (Al a 'Fallen Ghosts') We have Snipers, who seem deadlier than they were in wildlands; Heavies, who's ballistic armour makes them impervious to a single headshot; radio troops, who call in backup; and rocket launcher folk, who are pretty self explanatory. Then there are also the drone troops who make up a big part of the storyline. So far I have seen the patrol drones who can spot you from far away and simply call for soldiers to come find you; the Succubus drones, who hunt with SMG's and are the preferred battle mates of the Wolves; and the large deadly tanks who's spongey health bar feel more akin to something out of 'The Division' than 'Ghost Recon'.

In order to fight these new specialisations, the player is equipped with brand new selectable classes that each have their own inherent power. I focused mainly on the Panther in my playthrough, ensuring that I saw the versatility of the class, and I found the classes interesting enough. The Panther has the ability to spray themselves with an anti-drone masking spray and also use their ultimate to deploy a disorienting smoke screen that can hide the player mid-combat. I think that the full breadth of their abilities will be more useful in dedicated groups, or during raids, but maybe I just picked a class without a super active skillset. There are also classes with skills that revolve around medics, sharpshooters and demolition playstyles.

As a Panther, I had several passives (using the all new 'web' skill tree) that allowed for greater stealth movement and actions. As well as class level up incentives that encouraged me to favour close range takedowns and uses of my smokescreen. This was helpful in encouraging me to learn the uses of my skill and get familiar with the situation in which it would be applicable. Maybe if this incentive system is successful, it will mean that casual players will have a better understanding of how to use their class. It could make playing online with randoms actually feasible, which is great for people who lack actual friends to play with. (Like me.)

Ubisoft also went out of their way to ensure that the player is never without missions to pursue, with another system built and designed around the 'live service model'. On their mission board, players have separate divisions for story missions and faction missions. Players of Wildlands will be familiar with the 'headshots' layout of the story tab, but the 'faction mission' is wholly new. It is a collection of daily mission that encourage players to explore all over the landmass and infiltrate enemy strongholds with the intention of pulling off small tasks. This solves Wildland's problem, of bases that were only useful for one mission, then forgotten, by reusing these spaces for new dailies for the rest of time. Players are also incentivised to pursue these missions with the promise of seasonal tiered 'Battle Rewards' that are unlocked only through earning faction mission tokens.

With all of these systems happening at once, you might be wondering how Breakpoint manages to fit them all onscreen in a concise and elegant manner. Well, they don't. On the Beta build that I played, the UI was an unreserved mess of menu's, pins and status bars. I'm usually immune to the whole 'overwhelmed' sensation that people complain about with open world games (Unless we're talking about Korean MMOs) but with Breakpoint I was hit with that helplessness at first. It was only through dedication that I got everything to make sense, and even now I still think that the UI is a cluster. Seems the team agreed to some extent, as they included a prompt to hide all the HUD elements so that you can see what is in front of you.

Also, I know it's a low blow to talk about the stability of a beta, but the game is coming out very soon so I must express that I am worried about the bugginess of the game. There have been several times when I have crashed or been kicked from the game due to server difficulties, especially in the Hub area. And I have had to relog to solve some visual bugs on my character and the inability to see the offers in the newly implemented store front. Most distressing of all, however, was when I turned off the game at one point and came back to find that they had lost several hours of my progress. Again, in a Beta this isn't too much of a problem, but I worry that we are too close to launch to fix this many bugs. I'm sure that we were all playing an obsolete build, but I wonder just how obsolete.

I've already written an article detailing who Breakpoint is my 'Jam', and playing the thing has just cemented it's future place in my games library. However, the presentation has left me worried enough to the point where I won't be picking her up week one. The game itself plays like the best in the series, but I'm familiar enough with greedy corporation to recognise the bones of invasive monetisation when it is apparent. Consider me cautiously optimistic, with an extra side of caution, when it comes to Breakpoint. I just hope the title can prove me wrong.  

P.s. No, I don't have cornrows in real life. This was just the closest hairstyle to my own the game had availble.