Ghost Recon: Breakpoint - beta test thoughts

Ghost Recon Breakpoint is the latest upcoming game from Ubisoft and they recently conducted a closed beta test. I'm one mission away from completing Ghost Recon Wildlands, so being involved in the beta was timely and...interesting.

Without going into too much detail, Breakpoint is pretty much the same game as Wildlands. Gun and character customisation had been extended a little, but felt overall the same as before. The class system meant more of a focus on one skill tree or another, but again, overall it felt very similar to Wildlands. There was a plethora of gear, like pants, hats and gloves, to switch in and out, with a constant stream being dropped by dead enemies. Some of this gear gave you a bonus for various stats, but most simply pumped up the gear level (an arbitrary number that the game used to measure you against various enemies). The gear system felt like unnecessary busy-work, but at least it wasn't too obtrusive. To confuse things a little, the character clothing customisation was separate to the gear. You could display your ever changing hodge-podge of gear, or override that and show the character get-up you configured at the start of the game (obviously update-able).

Chillin'

On the topic of guns, an obviously important one, there were a lot of them. Unfortunately they all felt and sounded very similar (within their classes) and the bonus I got from being one class or another didn't really seem to translate into real-life results. As an assault guy I was apparently better with assault rifles and shotguns, yet there wasn't any downside to carrying an LMG and sniper rifle instead. What I did enjoy was the consumables; grenades, intel devices, rocket launchers, sync shot drones etc. I particularly enjoyed the sync shot drone, it sort of worked like sync shot in Wildlands - you selected it a target then fired on a second target and it would eliminate the first target at the same time. Handy. Even though each gun felt very similar, the shooting was fun still and worked well.

Guns, guns, guns. Also pictured, gear. Oh lord, so much gear.

Quick note: gone, thank god, is the all seeing drone from Wildlands, You'll need to do a lot of the scouting yourself and that was far more realistic.

Movement felt clunkier than Wildlands, I've never been a fan of the third person perspective but in Wildlands it only occasionally got in the way. In Breakpoint, I forever seemed to be standing in the wrong spot or facing the wrong way or struggling to get into cover due to the inertia being applied to all my moves. I felt ungainly and only partially in control, and I didn't like it.

Last two things, one good and one bad. The AI was good - mostly. It flanked (or tried to) regularly, they moved in numbers, they seemed to notice more anomalous things and investigate them, and they pursued quickly. When I messed things up it was a lot harder to reset and try again, the persistent little buggers would chase me all over, throw grenades, EMP my vehicle and fire mortars. Good stuff.

Skill selection

On the other hand, no matter what I did it looked and ran pretty averagely. I started on High visuals and found everything to be slightly jaggy and fuzzy. It ran decently, though only in the 35-45fps range (I have a mid-spec PC). I swapped this to Very High later on but barely noticed an improvement. To see what I might be missing I cranked it up to Ultra on the last day of the beta, and though the textures were a little crisper and the effects more abundant, it still looked worse and performer more poorly than Wildlands. If there was one real disappointment from the entire experience, that was it.

Stupid helo

Overall, given this was a beta, I enjoyed the experience and can forgive the bugs and general average looks and performance, hoping that these will be addressed in the final release. In terms of game play it continued the open world, play as you like, mechanic that I love, and did it well. Looking forward to finding it cheap and jumping back in.