We went hands-on with Ghost Recon: Breakpoint last month, but I got to spend two hours with the game at E3.
I’m not going to lie. Along with three other teammates, most of our time was spent trying to be stealthy, but failing miserably, leading to us having to use every asset in our arsenal to get in and out of some sticky situations. This led to some absolutely hilarious moment and even if we were failing miserably for a lot of it, it was still a great time.
The world of Auroa is absolutely stunning. It’s vast, filled with slopes and drop-dead gorgeous in general. We landed our helicopter on a hill which had been taken over by an abundance of pink flowers. Watching them move in the wind as we landed as well as moving about as we waded through them was a stunning sight.
The environment is also much more hilly than in previous games and this has a huge impact on gameplay. For instance, if you go to slide down a hill but it’s too steep, you’ll get injured. You might hurt your leg, which will cause you to limp. You’ll need to use a bandage to heal yourself up (which takes quite a significant amount of time), therefore leaving you (and your teammates who try to heal you) open for a longer period of time.
Thankfully, you can now carry your teammates, which doesn’t sound like a big deal but it is. Rather than leaving yourself exposed to enemies whilst trying to heal your teammates, you can quickly pick them up and carry them behind a rock.
Classes are completely changed up too. We got to play as Assault, Sharpshooter and Panther. You can now change on the fly and no weapons are locked to classes, which really allows you to play however you want at any given time. Each class has its own abilities and even challenges that you can complete. These are called ‘Rank Up’ or ‘Ghost War’ challenges and can involve killing enemies with a certain weapon or at a certain different and really force you to excel in whichever class you choose.
Another massive part of the game and where you’ll spend a lot of the time before each mission is the Bivouac. Here, you can upgrade your characters, unlock abilities and craft items to take out with you on the battlefield. You can even choose the time of day (day or night) depending on how you want to tackle the mission.
There’s really no right or wrong in how you attack each situation. For instance, we had about 6-8 missions open to us and it was as simple as making our way to any point of the map in order to undertake them. If it was too hard, or we weren’t having any luck, we could make our way over to do something else, which involved quickly grabbing a car (and most likely ending up with it flipped) or trying to enter enemy territory to steal a helicopter (and ending up getting killed before successful). It’s these little hilarious moments of gameplay that make this series so damn fun, and it’s no different with Breakpoint.
Most of our time was spent undertaking a search and rescue mission, trying to take back one of the game’s main characters, Paula Madera. In terms of how familiar this felt, if you played Wildlands, you know what to expect. Start by scoping out your enemies, especially the drones, rocket launchers, snipers and those who have mortars as they’re brutal and can take you out in one swift move. After you’ve cleared your targets (hopefully in a stealthy manner), you can move inside and take on some of the lesser enemies. After successfully recovering Madera, the building exploded in an epic real-time moment, before we escaped using a helicopter onto our next mission.
Another great part of the demo was taking on a massive drone, which was highly reminiscent of something out of Horizon Zero Dawn. We all had to work together to pinpoint weaknesses, which would then stun the massive machine before we could take it down. It was thrilling and unlike anything we’d have seen in Wildlands.
Ghost Recon: Breakpoint is shaping up to be more of the same, with some really great added features that push this beyond the last title. An interesting setting, upgrades such as the Bivouac and semi-permanent injuries as well as important changes to classes will make this the next game that you’ll want to play with your friends online (or by yourself in solo mode if you choose).
