Ghost Recon Breakpoint survey says players want AI teammates, offline play

Ghost Recon Breakpoint players want AI teammates put in ASAP, want tiered loot and The Division 2-esque gear score stripped out soon, and no online requirements. That’s according to the two-week survey that Ubisoft Paris is using to rebuild the lackluster open-world shooter.

In a letter to players yesterday, developers reported the results of the survey. Although most of the requests and feedback are listed as “in-progress,” meaning something addressing these wants is in the works, Ubisoft Paris was a little vague about the implementation of the big asks.

For AI teammates, Ubisoft referred players to a note on Oct. 28 that kicked off the survey. AI teammates have been a distinguishing trait of the Ghost Recon franchise, which sits between Rainbow Six and The Division on a spectrum running from tactical to pure action. In the October note, Ubisoft Paris noted it announced at E3 2019 that AI teammates would join the game post-launch, but also called the feature “a major undertaking that will still require time.” In other words: message received, but no changes in plans.

The same goes for gear score and tiered loot. Ubisoft also referred players over to the same “moving forward” letter that promises a “more immersive and radical version of Ghost Recon Breakpoint for early next year.”

And regarding a fully-offline mode of play, developers referred, somewhat conspicuously to that as “the remaining top result” of the survey, and said that “due to its scope [it] will require more investigation.” More info on that, or its feasibility at least, will be coming in early 2020.

It should be noted that The Division 2, since its March launch, requires a connection to Ubisoft’s servers to play even for a single-player instance in the open world. While co-operative matchmaking in The Division 2 is loads easier, Ghost Recon Breakpoint takes great pains to inform the player that it was designed for multiplayer experiences, which probably also explains why AI teammates weren’t in the game at launch. At any rate, given the history on this game and The Division 2, it seems a longshot that Ubisoft Paris can or will move off the online requirements.

Elsewhere, Ubisoft Paris said it had delivered improvements to enemy AI in the latest title update, and those efforts are still ongoing. The same goes for vehicle handling and balancing of the in-game economy. Quality-of-life requests, such as deactivating other players in the game’s hub world, camera improvements, respawn improvements and primary weapon designation are also listed as “in-progress.” However, sprinting in the hub world is just at the “investigating” stage. So everyone is still limited to a mosey or a jog within Erewhon, making it time consuming to go from mission-giver to the merchant to the bivouac to the raid, or whatever.

The most recent title update for Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint introduced another big request from the community survey: More customization options for the player avatar. Players can now change their gender and face mid-game, surely a boon to those who enjoy cosplaying G.I. Joe characters. That also added another 40 default items to help players construct their look.

Breakpoint last week also delivered the game’s first raid, titled Project Titan. Community reaction that so far is lukewarm, with many complaining of the bullet-sponge difficulty of the raid boss and, again, comparing it to The Division 2’s raid, whose bosses are a lot easier to eliminate.