Ubisoft enjoys a dramatic flair for their updates: Whether a new game or major update, you can bet that there will be an air of mystery as well as a bombastic presentation to follow.
If you missed the 20th anniversary update, here’s my own raw notes compiled as the stream was broadcast.
We open with a lot of nostalgia: The early portion of the stream is all about the history of Ghost Recon, and how Ubisoft is a loving parent for it [ed: my own jokes aside for how much they’ve deviated from the original Tom Clancy universe and style].
Next, there’s some chatting about their world-building strategy, with more waxing nostalgic, talking about how they expanded the maps until they came to the open-world design used now [ed: used now in their boilerplate for nearly all Ubisoft open-world games].
Authenticity is the next topic. While most would agree that authenticity isn’t quite there compared to something like Arma, it is at least better than what many other military-themed game developers do [ed: especially with the drones of Breakpoint]. The chat is going nuts about this.
ghostrecon.com/20Y_giveaways – Get the original GR for free, and the Wildlands DLC if you don’t own it already. That’s gift #1, and not a bad one.
Now we’re talking about how they have been listening to players to improve Breakpoint. While they’ve done a lot, and they acknowledge they failed pretty hard in the beginning, there is more that could be done from our perspective. Still, AI teammates and the Ghost Experience (both of which are referenced) have done some seriously good things for the game itself.
Yes, they even talk about ghillie hoods.
Here’s the bug acknowledgement section now. They’re talking about how they’ve bumped up their QA team, but with the number of bug reports that go unacknowledged (or unfixed even after claiming to be fixed), this is a bit of an empty statement here.
Delta company is now being plugged, with some of the delta company members being interviewed. A lot of praise from them, edited down to soundbites.
Next
Operation Motherland.
This isn’t a big surprise, but it’s annoying that they’ve been talking about it for a while.
Apparently you’ll be working with outcasts again here, and of course, Bowman is back (as has been plugged already).
You’re also seeing a lot of cyrillic here in the trailer art.
The next gift?
New skins from past games in Ghost Recon Breakpoint (called it), plus Deep State is going to become free for everybody.
“Oh, and one more thing..”
The new Ghost Recon Project is:
Ubisoft Bucharest has been developing, for the past 3 years.. A large-scale PvP shooter called Frontline.
In the trailer we saw them magically plop down a large defensible platform.
Class system (“Contractors”) that you can unlock and improve through experience.
So, basically, it’s Ghost Recon meets R6: Siege with up to 100+ players in a single map.
The live chat is going absolutely bonkers.. In a bad way, which is understandable.
Also, they feel they need to mention it as an important feature, so.. Why not: It’s a first-person perspective rather than 3rd.
It’ll have seasonable updates much like R6: Siege. They are also basically prepping themselves for the negative response on launch by saying “We’re ready to listen to you and adjust based on your feedback”.
They have registration for an upcoming closed test at ghostreconfrontline.com. I’m not expecting GGN readers to be all that interested, however.
That’s it.