Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Breakpoint

It’s easy to be skeptical of Ubisoft, but I happen to find much to revere in reliability. It’s a solid shooter, with a happy churn of loot, elevated by Jon Bernthal. Fun for the few days it holds your attention.

I’m torn on this conclusion, but I just feel like Ubisoft played it too safe with Breakpoint. There’s not a lot of risks being taken in this game, and it shows. With that being said, Ghost Recon Breakpoint is a good game. Unfortunately though, I think it was a step back from Wildlands. Perhaps Breakpoint would’ve benefitted from a delayed release, giving them some time to sort things out. There’s just a lot in this game that doesn’t fit into a Ghost Recon game that many fans have come to love. With the promise of free content drops, there is still time for Ubisoft to turn things around. With all that being said, Breakpoint is in good hands, and I’m excited to see what the future holds.

Ghost Recon Breakpoint’s greatest selling point is the fact that players can dictate their own experience.

Absent server crashes and disconnects, playing through the campaign in co-op mode is still fun and certainly more efficient than slogging through it solo, though it doesn’t improve the quality of writing or convoluted narrative. Ghost Recon: Breakpoint blurs the line between a singular, well-defined approach to the tactical shooter and a whole mess of other games, and the result is a loss of identity with little gained in the process.

Ultimately Breakpoint is a title capable of guaranteeing Wildlands fans a more than ample dose of ballistic fun, although the overall production balance does not show the clear step forward that could be expected.

Breakpoint is the result of a work in which the changes show the arrival of novelties to the saga that though they entertain in many aspects may not convince the saga lovers too much.

Ghost Recon Breakpoint tries to renew the Wildlands formula by introducing a few new elements, but it fails to deliver.

Breakpoint tries and does some new things to become something more than a mere sequel, but it also loses its identity in the process. It’s enjoyable with friends, although we wouldn’t recommend it if you’re playing alone.

As a fan of Ghost Recon: Wildlands, Breakpoint has disappointed me in many ways.

At its core, Ghost Recon Breakpoint has a lot of potential to be a great open world game. The open world looks beautiful, but feels kind of empty. The new mechanics are funny, but a bit forced most of the time. Also, the list of technical problems is far longer than should be, right after launch.

Ghost Recon Breakpoint doesn't do anything new but still provides a lot of fun, if you're willing to slow down and play tactically. The game falls short in many areas and doesn't quite keep up with it's competition but shooter and stealth fans will have a blast. Performance issues do hinder the experience and some questionable design choices left me baffled. If you're a huge third-person shooter fan and love open-world games, you wont regret giving it a shot, provided you check your expectations at the door.

Instead of improving Ghost Recon Wildland's mechanics, Ghost Recon Breakpoint tries to mix all the aspects of the trending genres, like survival, looting, RPG elements, crafting, and microtransactions. Overall the mix is way to messy to hook us up, and it feels like a badly-cooked meal.

Ghost recon: Breakpoint is an ambitious sequel with so much innovation, and it actually does a great job in terms of narrative and main quest missions. But most of those changes are nothing but disasters. Meanwhile, I suffered a huge number of bugs consistently during the playthrough. Ubisoft should do better next time.

Ghost Recon Breakpoint feels disconnected, lacking real purpose or direction. It still has a ways to go until it can stand alongside the other Live Service giants of the industry, but there are glimpses of quality to build upon.

Ghost Recon Breakpoint is a bit lost. The many bugs in combination with weird design choices bring down the level of a potentially solid shooter. The strong acting work of Jon Bernthal, the combat system and the Ghost War mode make up for this a little bit.

Breakpoint mixes different mechanics and concepts, but never manages to implement them in a meaningful way. The main story is better than Wildlands' and John Bernthal gives an excellent performance as the main villain. Unfortunately, the over the top micro-transactions and the never-ending list of bugs overshadows the fact that it can be a fun co-op game despite its shortcomings.

Breakpoint offers initial fun following Ubisoft's open-world structure as gospel, but a lack of variety and conflicting pieces leave it devoid of personality.

Ghost Recon Breakpoint is a good game but struggles to establish itself or stand out in a genre that is already small. It tacks on too much from Division's loot system, random game design choices, and RPG elements, muddying what Breakpoint is exactly meant to be. It can seem like a Looter Shooter at times but fails to capture what makes Looter Shooters great.

Behind all of its faults, even its painfully jingoistic overtones and its overtly militaristic design hides its true entertainment value.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Breakpoint is a good game overall. The biggest complaint is that it generally feels like a mashup of other recent Ubisoft shooters and even with some attempts at forging its own identity, it seems like a game we’ve already played recently. In spite of this, there’s quite a bit of fun to had and people who can’t enough of Wildlands or The Division 2 would likely find the same excitement here. If expectations are tempered for a familiar game that is derivative of previous contemporary titles, there’s a lot of fun to be had on Aurora in Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, but players expecting something drastically different and new will be looking a long time on the island.

Ghost Recon Breakpoint is an enormously ambitious game that is more varied and engaging than its predecessor, with a story that had us invested and a despicable villain to hate. Unfortunately, the excellent third-person shooting is often overshadowed by finicky cover mechanics and bugs. It’s still worth playing, but it will probably be a more enjoyable experience after Ubisoft has time to smooth out some of the more broken parts.

The big question is: what, exactly, is the target audience for Breakpoint? I can find things that I personally like, as well as moments I can identify as hat-tips to devoted genre fans. I just think that, in its attempt to be a tactical-action-open-world-sandbox-looter-shooter-online-squad-based-co-op, it collapses under the weight of all the hyphens. The disparate parts which Ubisoft tries to cram together are too different for a coherent game to form. I imagine the hardcore tactical FPS fan doesn’t want looter-shooter mechanics, and vice versa; anyone who likes this Breakpoint for one reason will hate it for some other reason. But at least Ubisoft did make the narrative less egregious this time around.

Something of a greatest hits collection of ideas from Ubisoft’s other open world games but it also has some fun new ideas of its own… as well as a mountain of glitches and microtransactions.

For the most part, Ghost Recon: Breakpoint is an enjoyable open world excursion, provided you know what to expect -- and let's face it, you probably know exactly what to expect. Its loot and gear score systems seem more than a little tacked on, but much like many of Ubisoft's other open worlders, there's a moreish quality to Breakpoint that's difficult to deny. In co-op there's potential for a lot of fun, and the freedom that you're given in both building Nomad and tackling missions is the game's greatest strength. However, an eye-watering number of microtransactions leave a sour taste, and a parade of annoying bugs give the release a disappointingly rough feel. Robust but bloated, Breakpoint is a mishmash that has its fun moments, but its identity is MIA.

Ghost Recon: Breakpoint could have benefited greatly by a longer development time, because as it stands, this feels like an incomplete product.

If you're trying to sell me on the idea that Ghost Recon: Breakpoint is some kind of tense, elevated tactical action experience instead of an elaborate and unpolished loot chase, then I know someone interested in giving you a hat with a higher gear score.

The problem is not that Breakpoint is boring, has uninteresting story, lots of irritating bugs and the least intelligent enemies in video game history. It is the fact that the newest Ubisoft shooter lacks its own identity. [12/2019, p.38]

Breakpoint attempts to push the series forward but often feels stuck in the mud from its own systems.

Jon Bernthal steals the show, though what's here truly isn't valuable enough to warrant stealing. The game's a technical mess, and displays stupid AI, repetitive missions and unnecessary looter shooter elements. All of these combine to turn Ghost Recon: Breakpoint into one of the most disappointing experiences of the year.

With so much promise in the lead-up, Ghost Recon Breakpoint falls flat of reaching its goal in satisfying expectations. With a lot of things to do but no real reason to do it, the game puts up barriers such as strange loot systems, a subpar plot, an extreme solo difficulty and a requirement for online play. If you can convince your friends to get a copy and play with you, your experience may be better – but chances are you’ll find your time better spent elsewhere.

Ghost Recon: Breakpoint is huge and quite scenic at times. Unfortunately, the world is bland and empty, the mechanics are flawed, and the gameplay is more irritating than fun. The developers have cobbled together too many things, without fully realizing any of them. If you want a spec-op experience, go back to Wildlands - the last true Ghost Recon installment. Breakpoint is the first game of the Ulbimate genre by Ubisoft - an empty shell with microtransactions.

Despite hewing close to its predecessor, Ghost Recon Breakpoint feels like a step backward for the franchise, with mechanics that hew too close to its open-world cousins.

Ghost Recon Breakpoint mostly feels like yet another AAA game that was released too soon.