What can I say? I’m a PC-Ghost of the first hour. A “real” vet if you would like to say so. A “Walker”. I’ve been playing the first Ghost Recon as a young man when it was released in 2001. I’m that old. I’ve also read some of Tom Clancy’s books on the US military, including his book on the Special Forces. Therefore, I have close ties to this game. With Ghost Recon I’ve fought my way through the Baltic States, East Africa, Cuba, Mexico and finally Bolivia in countless ambushes, encounter battles, delays, seek & destroy missions, infiltrations, you name it. Now I have arrived on Auroa.

Now my question, Ubisoft: “why on earth did you turn a tactical ego shooter franchise with a realistic, plausible, military background into some sort of fantasy shoot&loot roleplaying game for people who get a kick out of levelling their chars?” I’ve been playing Breakpoint now for around 40 hours, reaching a XP level of 26 (ok) and a gear level of 114 (dreadful, for what purpose?). Side mark: if the Wolves are Ex-Ghosts, and there are many of them, I come to this deduction (just to copy the speech of this ridiculous hints system made for the ill-brained who don’t get the obvious): the US Army in Ghost Recon is made of a) mainly SF soldiers and b) more than half of them must be traitors. But that’s not the point.

I think GRAW 2 was the last Ghost Recon that really deserved this name. Full stop. I already felt uncomfortable with Wildlands, because of the limited tactical possibilities to manage my squad. I could not order my teammates to different tactical positions. I could not define their rules of engagement, their firing arcs, could not coordinate the attack. The only tactical element in Wildlands worth mentioning was the sync shot. Anyway, somehow I grew used to it and accepted this shortcoming as a side effect of the open world aspect. Yes, I did like playing the game, though different.

In addition, if you acted clever, at least you could place some mines and set an ambush. Or clear a complete base while remaining swift, silent, deadly. You had to discover the map - ok. You had to collect better weapons and gear – ok, but you only had to do it once! You (almost enforcedly) had to level up the gun. Well, if that’s really necessary for some players – ok. But a M4 was a M4. In Breakpoint I’m confronted with “lesser M4A1 Carbine of Greater Endurance and Drone Slayer Bonus”. What’s next? Give me some elf ears and make me go after a PASGT vest made from finest mythril silver that renders me invisible to dragons, pardon drones? And that’s my core problem with the game: it’s too much like any generic, arbitrary fantasy MMORPG. Replace the main character with a dwarf, put him in chainmail, change the Sentinel mercs to Lannister soldiers (or whatever) and make the Asraёl drone a fire-spitting dragon that randomly flies over my head and inevitably roasts me on sight and voilà, a “new” game with same mechanics. Picking flowers to make some mana drinks, come on? What is this, World of Warcraft? Then let’s do what real soldiers do for survival. For example, hold an entrenching tool smeared with honey over an anthill to get a high protein spread. Anyhow, the way I’m playing it I hardly need any of this healing or stamina nonsense, but maybe that’s just me. If you want it to have some effect and to make the game “more realistic”, it would need to be more drastic. I’ve climbed Mount Sugarhill by foot with no canteen and no stamina loss.

What I don’t get? I’m playing a battle hardened elite soldier. I can ride motorcycles, fly helicopters, hack computers but I’m not capable of filling my water canteen in a river without prior to that acquiring the perk? Clearly, when I went to maneuver back home, momma did this for me before she kissed me goodbye. Now I’m running around Auroa, opening chests, just to find another set of the same(!) trousers I already have, but this time offering more wearing comfort around the testicles, so the rubbing sound will not alert the drones and therefore with higher “gear level”. Pretty annoying. Please stop bothering me with finding all the same shiny stuff that is better than what I had before, so all the other players can see how fancy my new boots or my new boonie hat are. Honestly, are you trying to get more women to play your game this way? This type of extensive skilling and collecting game is inept for a tactic shooter from my point of view.

Regarding atmosphere, you're telling me I’m the last survivor of my battalion but when I step into this “Garden Eden” cave there is at least a platoon of other lone survivors. Together we could bring down Walker with one hand in our pockets in an instant. The credibility was gone in that single moment, right at the beginning! Moreover, I’m forced to return to this “No-Go” area repeatedly if I want to proceed, there is no way around it and it continues to spoil the “one against the odds”-feeling of the single player mode. Contrary to that, exploring the world feels empty and dead as if after some biohazard disease that decimated the whole population. The behavior and speech of the few civilians left is hard to endure. I feel the urge to shoot them so they do know when I “violate their personal space”.

To foil the impression of an almost unpopulated island, there are so many opponents scattered in the landscape and of which you don’t know why they are there at all, I seemingly can’t walk three steps without running into another bunch of them. And no matter how many I kill, it doesn’t thin out their ranks. Sentinel must be the size of the Chinese PLA, never mind. In regular mode (game says enemies can compete with elite soldiers!) they are stupid, as are the Wolves. They carry the most sophisticated equipment a soldier could dream of, but when they come under fire they don’t even have a Walkie-talkie with them to call the squad 200m away for assistance? I spent considerable time and ammo bringing down a patrol drone and the two accompanying Wolves almost did not move? What the heck? They did not shoot back, they did not try to outflank me, they did not search for better cover. When the drone was done they still stood where I had left them. Even when I dropped the first one his comrade stood still. Is this “regular” behavior? I’ve switched to “advanced” after that, right after a few hours of playing (yes, I tackled a gear level 100 zone successfully at gear level 27!) and ok, I shot them from a boat (my tactic to stay clear from the drone), but that really shouldn’t matter. The A.I. has potential for improvement. I’m fairly disappointed so far with its lemming-like behavior, also in other situations. Maybe this is due to the fact, because otherwise one lone gunman could barely handle the overwhelming odds of a dedicated and professionally carried out counterattack driven to take him out?

What do I really expect from a good Ghost Recon game? That it is a serious tactical ego shooter. With tactical elements, that means first line commanding a team and support. If the situation is survival, escape and evasion like in Breakpoint, ok, but not as a complete game to save the world. No inventory with 200+ different trousers! Instead, different weapons that really have different effects and from which you have to choose carefully for carrying out your mission. For example, with every new Ghost Recon I was hoping for a M82 anti-materiel rifle that would once make the difference. That slows it’s carrier painfully down, but can fire one kilometer in a straight trajectory through a brick wall and kill the two bad guys standing in line behind it in one single shot. Instead of, only thing all the M82’s in all the past games did was just to look different. Bullet drop, btw, is still ridiculous in Breakpoint, but that’s only a minor flaw if you know it and compared to the other issues (After all, I recently managed to kill two guys with one single headshot but no brick wall with my Dragunov rifle. Thumbs up for this one!).

Oh, and one thing that’s really totally unrealistic, why for god’s sake the map can’t be unveiled from the air, only by moving on the ground?

??????????

Already during the Napoleonic era with the help of balloons, but latest since World War I and the introduction of air forces, air reconnaissance was a major task in any army around the globe. To check the terrain, enemy movements, enemy positions and fortifications. When I ride in a chopper at Breakpoint I get no information from that at all. In Wildlands it did work and this was already a tedious task but I found it acceptable. In Breakpoint doing everything from the ground is close to torture and that’s against Geneva Convention. On the other hand, Sentinel Little Birds can spot me under dense jungle canopy, not to speak of these nerves jangling Asraёl drones, where you have to hit the deck immediately and camouflage, or Wolves ground forces may fall over you, popping up from out of nowhere and with virtually zero reaction time. Realistic? If getting spotted would only result in helicopters going after you (and landing to drop troops), it would be far more acceptable.

A last major point of criticism: I went to the online shop, I spent 20.-€ of real money, and all I got was five gear textures (three of which I didn’t want). That is daylight robbery! I will never spend extra money on this game again!

Up to now was a lot of criticism, so what are the things I like? The world, the landscape, the graphics are just beautiful and so incredibly full of details. On a boat trip to Golem Island I saw a sunset on the open sea that looked almost like a real one! Also the way the player’s character moves, crouches behind cover, the small gestures like warming the hands are great, I’ll give you credit for that. One of the first things I did, once I was aware of it, was switching off the guided mode. This requires you at least a little bit to search and read the map, plan your move, your ingress and egress, things a soldier normally would have to do. Good idea. That you can freely decide what you’re doing next and you don’t have to strictly follow the main story line gives also a nice touch. That you can now drag dead bodies for hiding them or cut through a fence also improves the tactical possibilities. Contrary to others, I’m also fine with the controls, with one exception: climbing ladders…

What is my summary? Breakpoint is not a true Ghost Recon, only by name. If I want to play “shiny ranger in mythril plate”, armed with “incredible boom-stick of lesser ignorance” there are other fantasy roleplaying games. In addition, I will not spend any extra money on Breakpoint if the value in exchange remains that impudent thin. I will finish playing it to see how the story ends, and maybe I will play with some of my friends in Coop mode once they have the game. However, I can’t recommend it to them. The way it is now Breakpoint is a step in the very wrong direction, a letdown compared to predecessors.

My idea of a future “20 year’s anniversary Ghost Recon”? Convert back to what was good in GRAW 2 & Wildlands. Keep the open world up, but limit the equipment again. For example, one weapon – one characteristics – no bonuses. Different characteristics for different weapons and not only different textures. I could accept a realistic load carrying system, based on your clothing and gear. The idea of damage and stamina is good. Make something out of it. Delete this overflowing collecting, crafting, bargaining and magic potion crap from the game play. Making some sort of IED’s is ok, but you just don’t craft a new M26 fragmentation grenade from metal parts found in a scrap yard during an improvised bivouac and call the game “realistic”. Make it tactical advanced again: with a team, an order tree, ROE, waypoints, reconnaissance, fire mission management, calling support, timing an attack, smart A.I., all this stuff. Less skilling. An elite soldier is an elite soldier. He’s expected of being capable doing certain basic infantry things, like throwing grenades, using rocket launchers or hauling *** if necessary. Or filling his canteen…

And please, stop awfully mixing up. Rangers are not SF and neither of them say “Hooah”. After the movie “Blackhawk down” Rangers vowed never ever to say “Hooah” again. That’s conventional Army slang. Maybe they say it for the purpose of sarcasm, I don’t know.

PS: I hate futuristic drones that make my own drone look like it is a toy from Walmart. I’ve already prepared myself mentally for the first Wolves armed with railguns and lasers.