Is Ghost Recon Breakpoint actually worth buying and playing?

Ghost Recon Breakpoint doubles down on a lot of elements that made its predecessor Wildlands so great, but then adds on a bunch of new aspects, adding extra tactical depth to a game that is mostly about mucking around in helicopters and doing extrajudicial murders.

The move towards a more MMO style is a change that isn’t going to work for everyone, but it will create more tactical choices. The story, if we’re being honest here, is largely garbage whenever Jon Bernthal’s villainous Cole Walker isn’t on screen, but as a shooter it will create anecdote after anecdote for you and a few friends.

Tactical espionage action

Ghost Recon Breakpoint’s core gameplay loop is satisfying, as you go from place to place taking down bad guys with extreme prejudice. There’s some fun extra elements: black-bagging enemies to interrogate them for the location of weapon blueprints or attachments, taking down convoys for better loot, and even investigating side missions and areas defended by high tech drones.

There’s a mass of content here to get sucked into, even though most of it merely involves shooting men from the leafy undergrowth. This is a game much better suited to playing in co-op with friends, and you should definitely dig into it. Each additional player adds extra tactical consideration.

With a four-man fireteam, Ghost Recon Breakpoint is at its best

Each of the classes in the game offer up a new way to play, too. The assault class — a favorite of mine — is well suited to pummelling folks with explosives, forgoeing stealth for a tornado of chaos. Elsewhere, the sharpshooter is good at providing overwatch, covering teammates as they move into position, and going loud when it isn’t.

The Panther specialises in stealth and close-quarters takedowns, and then when everything else goes wrong there’s the Medic, to patch you back up again. A perfectly balanced team will have one player of each archetype, but because the skill tree gives benefits to all sorts of characters, you can do a lot of fun stuff no matter which class you’re representing. This’ll be even more obvious as soon as the game starts adding new classes, hopefully adding even more options to the game.

There’s plenty of Ghost Recon Breakpoint content still to come, and Wildlands featured some great crossover missions, both with Ubisoft franchises like Rainbow Six Siege and Splinter Cell, but also classic sci-fi action movie Predator. Hell, Breakpoint is already getting a crossover with The Terminator in the next few weeks, so the new live game setup will probably see a bunch of dumb crossovers, which I’m a big fan of. Get yourself the Season Pass for Year 1 and you’ll get all of the content included, although some boxed copies of the game have this already included.

The game’s cosmetics game is pretty strong, too. Throughout the game you’ll add an increasing amount of vests, backpacks, hats and trousers to your ensemble, letting you live out all of your Operator fantasies, stuffing your character into camo or even just a big ol’ checked shirt and a stetson.

So should you buy Ghost Recon Breakpoint?

If you can rustle up friends for co-op, Breakpoint is a must buy. Fans of tactical shooters will find a relaxed sandbox here perfect for wasting time, slowly improving your weaponry and gear while exploring the island paradise of Auroa.