Ubisoft admits Ghost Recon Breakpoint is a hot mess

News
By published

Ghost Recon Breakpoint's lackluster launch is partly why the studio is delaying games

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Ubisoft has released a statement outlining why the company believes Ghost Recon Breakpoint failed and how that failure will affect its future projects. As we reported earlier, Watch Dogs Legion, Gods & Monsters, and Rainbow Six Quarantine are all being pushed back and won't be released until April 1 2020 at the earliest.

The statement goes into great detail about the lackluster performance of Ghost Recon Breakpoint and why Ubisoft thinks it did so poorly. CEO Yves Guillemot acknowledges that "critical reception and sales during the game's first weeks were very disappointing" and says the game has "been strongly rejected by a significant portion of the community." Why does he think this happened? 

Guillemot's reasons include: "it's harder to generate interest for a sequel to a live multiplayer game," therefore there needs to be more time in between live game launches, the game's "innovations need to be perfectly implemented" and weren't, and "Ghost Recon Breakpoint did not come in with enough differentiation factors." It's a pretty bleak post mortem, but one that still leaves pressing questions.

In a phone call with investors, Guillemot insisted that Ubisoft has "no pay-to-win elements" in their games, but Ghost Recon Breakpoint does have microtransactions, some of which were, at launch, clearly offering in-game advantages. As previously reported, the Time Saver bundle, which included skill points and weapon upgrades, was mercifully removed at the beginning of October. However, Ubisoft's official statement about the bundle said it would be taken out of the game "for now," implying the company plans on adding comparable elements back into Ghost Recon Breakpoint in the future. 

Microtransactions aside, Ubisoft says it intends to focus on in-game events for the foreseeable future, and to give the company's teams "more development time to ensure that their respective innovations are perfectly implemented so as to deliver optimal experiences for players." Let's see if Ubisoft follows through with this promise (the company released seven games in 2019 alone, and nine the year prior). 

No one will judge you if you're still playing Ghost Recon Breakpoint. In fact, we're here to help. Here's some of the best Ghost Recon Breakpoint tips to get you ahead of the game. 

Alyssa Mercante
Alyssa Mercante

Alyssa Mercante used to be a features writer at GamesRadar and is now a freelance writer and editor. Prior to entering the industry, she got her Masters's degree in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Newcastle University with a dissertation focusing on contemporary indie games. She spends most of her time playing competitive shooters and in-depth RPGs and was recently on a PAX Panel about the best bars in video games. In her spare time Alyssa rescues cats, practices her Italian, and plays soccer.