March 5, 2020

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon® Breakpoint: Developer Update

Ghosts –

We know that many of you have been eagerly awaiting to hear more about our plans for the future of the game, and our team is excited to finally be able to share an update about what we have been working on!

First, we wanted to thank all of you that participated in the Terminator Live Event. We were so happy to see players jump back into the game to take on one of the most badass enemies we’ve introduced to the franchise.

GRB DevUpdate TerminatorInfo

But enough about the past. We want to talk about the future of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint.

TU 2.0.0

TU 2.0.0, currently slated for March 24, will be our biggest, most complex update to Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint, which will include new narrative content tied to Episode 2, PvP updates, new classes, many quality-of-life updates, as well as the new Immersive Experience for the game, called the Ghost Experience!

GHOST EXPERIENCE

After the launch of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint, we decided to shift our approach and refocus our priorities as a team.

Gathering all of the data and feedback we could, our team created the Ghost Experience – a game mode that will give our players the option to create their own personal spec-ops journey.

After months in development and several play tests with many types of players, including Delta Company members, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon® Wildlands players, and new players of the franchise, we are now ready to introduce the Ghost Experience to you all.

Right when you boot up the game, you will be able to choose from two preset options or build your own combination:

  • Regular Experience: Play Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint the way it was released, with gear level and tiered loot.
  • Immersive Experience: A brand-new experience of the game that removes gear level and tiered loot entirely, and offers new tactical options.
  • Custom Experience: Choose your own selection of settings to create a personalized fit.

You’ll be able to choose from a variety of community-requested settings, such as stamina management, health regen, new HUD settings, and more!

For additional information on the Ghost Experience, check out our dedicated article here.

As we said in our last update, developing and integrating this mode has been a complex challenge that we’re now almost ready to put in your hands. We can’t wait to see how you engage with this new mode on Tuesday, March 24.

EPISODE 2 – DEEP STATE

Episode 2 will start on March 24 with the release of TU 2.0.0. Kicking off the episode is a brand-new adventure, Deep State, which will be available automatically to all Year 1 Pass owners.

AND MANY MORE ADDITIONS!

ENGINEER CLASS

With TU 2.0.0, the Engineer class will be introduced to the game! Engineers deal more damage to drones, carry extra offensive items, and have a buff to grenade launchers.

GRB DevUpdate Eng

Their special ability is the Defensive Drone, which will attack nearby enemies. Their class tool is the Ammo Supply Drone, which will bring their allies an extra magazine.

Year 1 Pass owners will have exclusive access to the Engineer class for one week starting on Tuesday, March 24.

COMMUNITY REQUESTED UPDATES

This TU will also include updates on many of the frequent requests we have seen from the community, including:

  • Camera Placement: Choose whether the camera will dynamically adapt its distance depending on the situation: staying close, or moving further from the character.
    • Dynamic: Camera dynamically shifts between close during combat and far out of combat. This is how the camera currently works in the game.
    • Close: Camera stays close to the player character.
    • Far: Camera stays far from the player character.
  • Increased Weapon Parts: Players will get more low-quality weapon parts for dismantling.
  • Better Weapon/Gear Sorting Options:
    • Favorite System: When hovering over an item, in the loadout or in the shop, players can mark an item as a favorite. Once it is a favorite, it cannot be dismantled or sold until deselected.
    • Optimize Gear: A new button appears in the loadout only when Gear Level is activated. When pressed, the player will instantly equip all the best gear present in their inventory. This applies only to gear, not weapons.
    • Weapons/Gear Sorting: New sorting options added for better usability.
  • Sell All: Players can now sell all non-favorite and non-equipped items.
  • Dismantle All: When in a weapon or gear selection page, players can choose to dismantle all non-favorited and non-equipped items in this category.
  • Option to Quick-Equip New Gear/Weapons: When looting an item, players can now equip it immediately by holding a button input as shown in the loot notification window.
  • Walker & Hill Figures: The figures will be re-introduced in the game with the release of TU 2.0.0.
  • Base Jump:
    • Created new platforms to BASE jump from in key areas.
    • Updated systems in-game which create a more permissive BASE jump experience.
    • Reduced the auto-deploy distance to allow for more time BASE-jumping before deploying the parachute.
  • Vehicles: Improvements have been made to helicopter immersion, bike animations, and general handling debugging.
  • Respawn System Improvements:
    • Added new respawn points to relevant/highly traversed areas of the map.
    • Players will no longer respawn to the closest point geographically. Instead, they will respawn to the latest location they went through before dying to avoid spawning in a location they have not visited before.
  • Gunsmith Updates:
    • Most assault rifles will now be able to equip short barrel options (some ASR models have been omitted as their real-life counterparts do not have short barrel options).
    • TA31H added to 27 weapons with emphasis on Assault Rifles.

We are beginning work on the Gunsmith and will have more updates to come. In upcoming TUs we’ll add trigger customization and more to the feature, so please continue giving us feedback!

We’ve done our best preparation to ensure that the new systems introduced in the TU with the Ghost Experience work smoothly with existing ones, but we know that there will be things that only get exposed when accessed by hundreds of thousands of people. We are committed to addressing the issues that may arise as quickly as we can and keeping you apprised of our progress on them.

Check back in with us closer to the release date of the TU for our full Patch Notes list.

GHOST WAR

Coming in Episode 2, we will also release updates to Ghost War, including new maps and a map voting function!

COMING UP FOR GHOST RECON

COMMUNITY SURVEY UPDATE

As a follow-up to the Community Survey, we want to give a status update on the big topics we’ve made progress on so far that aren’t addressed above.

Enemy AI Improvements

  • (IN-PROGRESS) We are continuing general debugging for TU 2.0.0., especially regarding NPC packing.

Ability to Sprint in Erewhon

  • (CLOSED) After investigating the resources needed to implement this, the team has decided not to focus on it and is investing time in other areas.

AI Teammates

  • (IN-PROGRESS) Our team is continuing to work on AI Teammates for implementation in Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint. We’ll share another update with you in the coming months.

Offline Mode

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint was built from the ground up to be an online experience. We heavily investigated the possibility of adding the option of an offline mode, but we were not able to come up with a solution that did not create an unacceptable amount of technical risks.

However, with TU 2.0.0, we are implementing an update that we hope will alleviate some of the frustration players experience with poor internet connection.

Our team identified that the service that was most difficult for players with inconsistent connections was the one that enabled matchmaking. With this new update, players who cannot maintain a sustained connection to matchmaking services will still be able to play solo PvE without being disconnected.

These players will still have all of the functionality of the game except access to multiplayer modes. While in this mode, your Friends List will appear empty.

The game will regularly re-test this connection in the background without impacting your play. You will be able to manually trigger a re-test of the connection by initiating matchmaking in multiplayer modes.

RAID 2 CANCELLATION

Our team was humbled and grateful to receive your feedback on Project Titan, which was something entirely new for us and for Ghost Recon as a franchise. In our original Year 1 plan, we wanted to follow up Project Titan with another raid. However, we want to make sure we are allocating our resources in the best places to create better experiences for our players.

With this in mind, we have made the decision to replace the second raid with a future update to the Ghost Experience. Based on all the player feedback we’ve received online and in play testing, our team is confident that deepening the Ghost Experience is the right direction for the game.

YEAR 1 PASS

With the delays of recent content, we’ve seen questions from our Year 1 Pass owners. The Year 1 Pass ends when we have delivered all of the following content:

  • The Siren's Call Day 1 mission.
  • Two upcoming new adventures in Auroa.
  • An early unlock for 3 new classes.
  • The Special Operations Forces Pack.

Regardless of the release date, all Year 1 Pass owners will get access to the two upcoming adventures starting with Deep State, as well as early unlock for three new classes starting with the release of the Engineer.

THANK YOU

We’re very excited to have our community try out the Ghost Experience and Episode 2 content, and we are looking forward to your feedback. Our team wants to keep improving and building upon it, so please share your thoughts with us.

We hope to see you on March 24 to play the Ghost Experience in the game!