Ubisoft is ending their post-launch support for Ghost Recon Breakpoint, with reports suggesting that the next Ghost Recon game could be announced in the near future. In the meantime, Ubisoft will maintain the servers for both Ghost Recon Breakpoint and its predecessor Ghost Recon Wildlands for the foreseeable future.
Hey Ghosts, we have an important message we would like to share with you all ? pic.twitter.com/kYeyVWVtgi
— Ghost Recon (@GhostRecon) April 5, 2022
The message highlights that Ubisoft has made more than 11 major updates to the game since it launched two years ago, bringing back AI Teammates, adding Special Operations with Sam Fisher, tying in with Rainbow Six operators, and more. Even within the last four months they added the Operation Motherland mode.
Of course, they also worked to add NFTs to the game, with Ubisoft Quartz a highly controversial and widely criticised (and mocked) attempt to build digital scarcity into the game. Ubisoft hasn’t really followed up on that project, and given the backlash and dismal performance of the NFTs on the open marketplaces, it’s not clear what Ubisoft’s plans are for the future. Will these NFTs be usable in the next Ghost Recon game?
Speaking of which, Kotaku claims that Ubisoft Paris is hard at work on the next entry in the franchise. Codenamed ‘OVER’, as leaked in an Nvidia database, it has been in development for more than a year and could see a release within the next year.
Additionally, they claim that the free-to-play battle royale Ghost Recon Frontline has undergone a “reset”, after negative fan feedback from its announcement as part of Ghost Recon’s 20th-anniversary stream. Absolutely nothing has been heard about the game since then, outside of an indefinite delay for a public playtest.
It’s strange to consider Ghost Recon as a franchise in a bit of a crisis, considering where it was not that long ago. Ghost Recon Wildlands had OK reviews, but it sold very, very well for Ubisoft and was one of the best-selling games of 2017. By contrast, Ghost Recon Breakpoint was a flop. It reviewed even more poorly, but it then didn’t meet sales expectations, and saw Ubisoft have to quickly act to revert several game design decisions to appease fans over survival mechanics, the lack of AI teammates, loot grind and more. With the unpopular NFT shenanigans and Ghost Recon Frontline, there’s a growing pressure on the franchise to start performing again and get back to what it does best. Here’s hoping that the next game can do just that.
