As an ever present part of the “big trio” of Tom Clancy games in Ubisoft’s stable (Splinter Cell and Rainbow Six being the other two), Ghost Recon has always been held up to the highest of standards by both fans and the industry alike. It is fair to say that the last few games in the franchise have failed to meet that standard. Enter Future Soldier, which aims to return Ghost Recon to the apex of the third person tactical shooter genre. XGZ was lucky enough to be invited to a preview press event, where we got hands on time with the game, and a chance to chat with members of the development team.
Set in a not-too-distant-future, you are part of a brand new 4 man Ghost team, each of whom has a particular specialisation. Kozak is the team’s resident commando, Pepper, is most comfortable with a sniper rifle in hand, 30k is the reconnaissance expert, and Bones rounds off the team with his engineering expertise. The Ghosts have been sent to investigate and take care of an ultra-nationalist faction that have overthrown the Russian government, and are moving to invade neighbouring territories.
At this particular stage, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier appears to combine gameplay elements from other Clancy titles, and does this mostly successfully. Fans of Splinter Cell will instantly recognise the directional threat indicator from Conviction, as well as the Sync Shot feature (affectionately referred to by the dev team as “Tag and Bag”) which draws original inspiration from Rainbow Six: Vegas, and later adapted to become Sam Fisher’s Mark and Execute ability, also seen in Conviction. Of course, with this being Tom Clancy’s vision of the future, the Ghosts have a dazzling array of tech and weaponry at their disposal to get the job done. Take the aerial Drone for instance. This nifty little bit of kit allows you to scout ahead and paint hostile forces, thus revealing their location to your team via their HUDs. Furthermore, the Drone can be used to mark up to 4 targets for a Sync Shot manoeuvre. While hardcore fans might immediately bemoan this as making the game too easy, the use of the Drone has a few drawbacks. For starters, the enemy AI can not only detect the drone, they will go as far as to try and shoot the thing down, thus alerting them to your presence and nullifying any stealth advantage you had built up till that point. Secondly, using the drone to mark targets for a Sync Shot takedown will force your teammates to aggressively leave cover in order to properly line up their shots. Such risk taking will, more often than not, leave them vulnerable, and mostly dead. When done right however, players are rewarded with a beautiful slow mo sequence where all Ghost members line up their shots and dispatch their targets simultaneously.
There is also the light bending, futuristic Optical Camo, sure to be a hit with many fans. In a crouched or prone position, the Optical Camo comes into effect after a few seconds of inactivity and makes the player almost invisible. Camo advantage is maintained for as long as the player does not move too quickly (i.e. breaking into a sprint) or stand upright. It is important to note that camouflaged Ghosts can still be spotted by suspicious or alert enemies. When used right however, it allows any member of the team to sneak right up to their target, and depending on the input command, perform a stealth kill, or a silent CQC takedown. Players are rewarded for either of those actions with spectacular animations, based off real Special Forces operatives.
Sensor grenades form another invaluable part of the Ghosts’ arsenal. When thrown, these emit continuous pulses that reveal the location of enemies behind cover, within a certain effective radius. Think of it as a portable, limited range “wall hack” which benefits your team. They can prove extremely useful when coupled with the Focus Fire command, a feature which has replaced the now scrapped “Link-Up” from previous builds of the game. Focus Fire will make all members of your team concentrate their firepower on a priority target and is best used when you happen to be pinned down by enemy suppressing fire or when facing armoured targets like BTRs. Speaking of suppression, it is evident that Ubisoft have introduced a lot of little visual touches that add to the overall gameplay experience. “When you are being suppressed behind cover, there is a lot of camera shake, your aim becomes inaccurate and you’ll die rather quickly if you exit that cover, or it disintegrates. That is the perfect time to use Focus Fire” says Community Developer Antoine Emond, as he shows me how to activate the command. “Focus Fire will cause your teammates to draw the enemy’s attention (and aggro), allowing you time to get out of cover and flank them.”
All these new toys and features serve to emphasise the heavily tactical element of Future Soldier. You’ll have very limited success going in all guns blazing. Updated AI means that enemies are smarter, and won’t hesitate to drop you in a heartbeat. It is a point that Game Director Eric Couzian states was stressed to the team by the Spec Ops operatives they had come in as consultants. “All the actions, movement, squad orders and tactics you see in game are true, or as close to the truth as we could make them, and based off real Spec Ops operatives that came in to give us advice.” The game’s level design certainly encourages a methodical approach; gathering Intel prior to gunfights and making full use of your team, weapons and equipment. Ubisoft have been keen to ditch the “micromanaging” style of previous Ghost Recon games, and appear to have succeeded. Your AI teammates actively follow your lead without the need to be positioned or shown where to go, thus freeing the player of point-and-click responsibilities. Barring one helicopter gun sequence, all the missions we had the chance to play featured urban warfare; burnt out vehicles, low walls, civilians, the full kit and caboodle. Players will quickly learn that almost anything can be used as some sort of cover, and a lot of it is partially destructible. Moving between cover spots while maintaining complete battlefield awareness will be crucial to success.
Based on my experience with the single player missions alone, Future Soldier has some of the hallmarks of the tactical Ghost Recon games of old (pre Advanced Warfighter). It appears a more focused and streamlined package than previous builds, with a campaign I’ve been told, should last around 10 hours at least. The Kinect functionality in the Gunsmith mode (exclusive to the Xbox 360 version) appears to have been tweaked and improved slightly, with further improvements apparently in the works, now that the teams have extra time for polish (since the announced delay to May 25th). As with most shooters in this day and age, Future Soldier’s perceived “success” will be judged by how well the 4-player co-op and online multiplayer are received; the latter is set to have 10 maps, 4 objective based modes and 3 different specialisation classes available to players right out of the box.
Check out our Video Preview and Developer Interview (with Game Director Eric Couzian) via the links below.
Ghost Recon: Future Soldier – Video Preview
Ghost Recon: Future Soldier – Developer Interview with Eric Couzian
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