As much as the comparatively small GR community wants to cry, BR's are what the majority of people want right now. BR's sell, are easy to promote and get great exposure on streaming platforms.
What Ubisoft doesn't understand is that the Ghost Recon community wants nothing to do with a Battle Royal Ghost Recon game. Ubisoft has staff on the forums talking about how much they value the community feedback and that they are listening. Yet time and time again, Ubisoft does the exact opposite of what the players want most of the time.
Battle Royals do make a lot of money through predatory microtransactions. That's why Ubisoft is making one. They are also low effort titles to crank out compared to some massive AAA single/cooperative open world game with a structured narrative. It's a "me too" type of offering. There are plenty of Battle Royal games out there and Ubisoft just wants a piece of the action. They don't give a **** what their existing customers want. They are trying to attract an entirely different customer base which will make them more money.
Where is this majority? They sure as hell not in any communities I've seen. Not on youtube, not on any social media. Not on ubisoft forums. Because everywhere there is huge pushback against this type of games. Which actually warms my heart, that finally people had enough of garbage tier free to play whale exploitation machines pretending to be games.
It's obvious based on their sales numbers and popularity that there is a definite market for them. Whether or not there is room for another Battle Royal game on the market is another matter entirely. Beyond that, its clear that the Ghost Recon community wants nothing to do with Battle Royal games. The bigger problem is that the community pushed back on Ghost Recon as a looter shooter and rightly so. Rather than listening to the fans, Ubisoft is doubling down and taking the Ghost Recon franchise to the next level, which to them is a free to play Battle Royal game filled with predatory microtransactions. It's a game type that lives on them without the push back they get from single player titles.
Ubisoft also claims that they've been working on the game for three years. That seems like a lie to me. Or they have, and the project was either mismanaged or took a long time to figure out mechanically. Battle Royal games are lower effort titles. All multiplayer games are. The hilarious part is, Ubisoft thinks this will work. It won't.
First off, Ghost Recon has a small but dedicated fan base. The games fill a niche for sure. Fans of challenging slower paced tactical shooters probably don't crossover as much with games like Fortnite. As it is, the direction taken by Wildlands and Breakpoint divided the existing fan base with some praising the new direction and others deriding it. Ghost Recon fans
(the vocal ones anyway) are overwhelmingly angry about the announcement so they won't be playing it. Ghost Recon as a franchise and Ubisoft as a developer aren't known for BR games. So, its starting over from scratch in a sense.
The Ghost Recon name probably isn't all that enticing to fans of games like Fortnite and PUBG. Ubisoft can't manage to balance PvP in a Ghost Recon game which should be more straight forward than a Ghost Recon skinned PUBG. It's a bit like asking CD Projekt Red to do a multiplayer game. It's just not in the companies wheelhouse.
I mean, Ghost Recon Flatline as they call it on the GR forums does have a slightly different take on the genre, so it might surprise everyone and work really well. However, look at how they've handled games like Rainbow Six Siege. It's a bastardization of the Tom Clancy name and the characters are more "Overwatch" than R6 these days. My gut feeling is this won't be pretty. Companies should stick to what they are good at.
For Ubisoft its making incredibly fun and buggy open world games with incredible single player and cooperative experiences and then, fixing them over the course of a year.
Didn't they just announce some similar garbage just a month or so ago, and it was recieved exactly the same way? You'd think they get the hint.
Yes they did. I can't recall what its named but they announced some mashup of all the Tom Clancy properties into some multiplayer dumpster fire. That one managed to piss of Rainbow Six Siege players, Ghost Recon Players, The Division 1/2 players, etc. There is also some transitional Division game which is another free to play dumpster fire. Meanwhile, GR and Division fans are asking for more content and those games feel like abandonware.
