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'Elite Squad' pulls together a Tom Clancy dream team on mobile
Ghost Recon: Breakpoint wasn't the only Tom Clancy-related game Ubisoft showcased at its E3 event. It revealed the trailer for Tom Clancy's Elite Squad, a mobile RPG that pulls together characters from Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, The Division and Splinter Cell to form a spec-ops dream team.
'Ghost Recon Breakpoint' pits you against killer drones
Ubisoft revealed the latest entry in its long-running Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon franchise at a world premiere event Thursday. Set on a remote Pacific island called Auroa, home to a mysterious tech company called Skell Technology, Ghost Recon Breakpoint places you behind enemy lines. You'll be hunted by a group called the Wolves, a group of special ops soldiers who went rogue. They've reprogrammed Skell's autonomous drones to become powerful killing machines.
Ubisoft is adapting 'Child of Light' for TV
With more and more games turning into TV and movie properties (such as The Witcher, Street Fighter and Alan Wake), it's only natural that a major studio such as Ubisoft would want a bigger slice of the action. Among other projects, the company is working on scripts for a Child of Light TV series and a Werewolves Within movie, it told Variety.
'Ghost Recon Wildlands' adds a hardcore permadeath mode
Ubisoft isn't just relying on cameos from aliens and iconic game characters to inject extra life into Ghost Recon Wildlands. When the Special Operation 2 pack arrives on July 24th, it'll include a Ghost Mode that adds some high-stakes realism. For one, death is permanent -- if your character falls in battle and isn't revived in time, all your hard work will amount to nothing. Friendly fire is also a real risk. And you'll want to be conservative with your shots, since you'll only have one primary weapon (you have to swap at ammo boxes or when looting) and will lose any unspent ammo in a given clip when you reload. If regular Wildlands seemed too soft, you won't have that problem from now on.
'Ghost Recon Wildlands' is getting a 'Splinter Cell' crossover
Ubisoft's latest bid to keep Ghost Recon Wildlands in the spotlight: bring in one of the Tom Clancy universe's other stars. The developer has teased "The Call," a special mission that appears to bring in Splinter Cell's legendary protagonist, Sam Fisher (apparently voiced by original actor Michael Ironside). You'll get full details on April 9th, but there are already hints that the Ghosts and Fisher will team up to tackle a situation involving a leak at the CIA.
'Ghost Recon: Wildlands' $40 season pass packs two big expansions
Ghost Recon: Wildlands comes out next week. I know, I almost forgot about it too. But if an open world filled with guns, high-speed chases and sniping over huge distances in Bolivia is more your speed than robotic dinosaurs or some random game with a princess, you might be interested to know what Wildlands has in store after launch. You know, for when you've long since finished its campaign and dominated the competition on the packed-in multiplayer maps.
Ubisoft is shutting down the free-to-play 'Ghost Recon'
Free-to-play games based on popular franchises were a huge trend for awhile. But, as Microsoft showed us this week by canceling Halo Online for Russia, there are no guarantees for success. Ubisoft is following suit and shutting down Ghost Recon Phantoms, formerly known as Ghost Recon Online. As Gamasutra writes, this was the publisher's maiden voyage into the market when it launched back in 2011.
'Ghost Recon: Wildlands' goes after the cartel on March 7th
Ghost Recon: Wildlands made its first appearance at Ubisoft's showcase last year, but now we get to see it in action in a new sumptuous gameplay trailer. The terrain is particularly beautiful, and as we heard last year, vehicles are a major part of traversing it all. In the (seemingly edited together) demo, GRW seems to involve an almost constant stream of bro-talk from your fellow soldiers, but it at least offers an audio-based way of keeping you up to date with your teams progress. The attack on the Bolivian-based cartel starts on March 7th next year, on PS4, PC and Xbox One.
Grab Tom Clancy's best games for a $10 donation to charity
Tom Clancy is gone, but Ubisoft definitely hasn't forgotten the military-centric author or his legacy of branded video games. Neither have the folks at Humble Bundle, for that matter. Pledging at least $1 will get you Rainbow Six; Rainbow Six 3 Gold; Rainbow Six: Vegas; the original Ghost Recon; Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory on PC; and access to the Rainbow Six Siege multiplayer beta. Drop more than the average price (currently $7.99) and you'll pick up Rainbow Six Vegas 2, the first Splinter Cell and the one that changed things up considerably, Splinter Cell: Conviction. But wait, there's even more: A $10 donation adds the latest Sam Fisher adventure, Splinter Cell: Blacklist, and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier to the mix.
Ubisoft's 'Ghost Recon Wildlands' is an open-world tactical shooter
Well, here's something you probably didn't expect from Ubisoft's E3 event: an open-world Ghost Recon game. The developer's just-unveiled Ghost Recon Wildlands has you fighting a Bolivian drug cartel using whatever means you see fit, whether it's sniping targets from a distance, sneaking in under cover of night or simply causing chaos. Vehicles will play an important role, and it'll also be important to get help from (or be wary of) locals. Ubisoft is saying precious little about when Wildlands will show up or what its mechanics are like, but it'll have both co-op and solo play when it arrives on PC, PS4 and Xbox One. Check here for everything happening at E3 2015!
Samsung adds a little Ghost Recon to your 830 series SSD purchase
Need a bit more incentive to pick up one of those shiny new 830 series solid state drives from Samsung? Great news, storage enthusiast: Sammy's tossing a little Tom Clancy your way. The company will be including a download code for a full copy of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier in the boxes of 128-, 256- and 512GB models of the 830 series. The deal is good in the US and Canada -- for a limited time, naturally. The promotion begins today.
Kinect integration in Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, hands-off (video)
Microsoft's E3 keynote may have exploded with deeper Kinect support, but nothing caught our eyes quite as sharply as Ghost Recon: Future Soldier's rifle-exploding Gunsmith demo. A Ubisoft representative showed us how it's done: separating your arms separates your deadly firearm into a gorgeous display of floating screws, components, and accessories, which can be effortlessly modified, swapped, and replaced with gesture and voice commands. Too picky to decide for yourself? Then don't: just tell Gunsmith what you're looking for. For instance, saying "Optimize for range" produces a weapon any sniper should be proud of -- even better, we found that commanding Gunsmith to "optimize for awesome" birthed a rifle (pictured above) sporting an underbarrel shotgun attachment. A gun attached to a gun? Yeah, that works. Weapons can be tested in Gunsmith's gesture-controlled firing range, an engaging shooting mode exclusive to the Gunsmith weapon editor and not usable in regular gameplay. Head past the break for a hands-on (figuratively speaking) video.
Kinect support explodes, EA Sports, Mass Effect 3, and more hop on board
Kinect is almost as popular for its hacks as it is for actually playing games, but Microsoft and its third party developers are making a hard push for motion and voice-controlled games on the Xbox 360. Popular EA Sports franchises Madden NFL, FIFA World Cup, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour will all join the motion-gaming parade. No longer will you have to punch obscure sequences of buttons to pick plays, you'll actually be able to call out running patterns to your offensive line. Plenty of others are also getting in on the shouting and arm-flailing action, including Mass Effect 3, Forza Motorsport 4, Fable: The Journey, and Ghost Recon -- in fact, we were told, "all future titles in the Tom Clancy franchise will leverage Kinect." Crytek also offered a sneak peak at Ryse, a Roman-era brawler that will have you headbutting the air to take out baddies. Looks like you'll have to start stretching before firing up your console from now on. The following games will also be coming to Xbox 360 with Kinect Support: Minecraft Disneyland Adventures Kinect Star Wars Sesame Street Once Upon a Monster Kinect Fun Labs Kinect Sports: Season 2 Dance Central 2 Update: We've got a slew of demo videos of Kinect Fun Labs after the break -- it's Kinect hacks for the masses! %Gallery-125414% %Gallery-125428%
GRAW developer: PS3 not harder to code for than 360
Despite the steady hiss of internet pundits that suggests otherwise, Ubisoft's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter development team doesn't believe that it's harder to code games for the PlayStation 3 compared to the Xbox 360. Yann Le Tensorer, who co-created the graphics engine powering GRAW and the upcoming Beowulf, re-ckons that any uphill development battles are to blame on the learning curve associated with newer hardware. "It's wrong to say it's harder to code on the PlayStation 3, it's just something that needs to be learnt," he told GamesIndustry.Biz. He goes on to stun the less observant by pointing out that "it's just a different console." Le Tensorer isn't the first to comment on the hardware's perceived difficulty. In June, Team Ninja's Yosuke Hayashi engaged in less subtle commentary by simply telling complaining PS3 developers to "get out of the ring." The GRAW developer goes on to state, "Developers might says [sic] it's harder because it just takes time to understand the technology, we're still early in the lifecycle." In other words, it is tougher to program for the system, but only while you're still learning the technological ropes. It seems a fair explanation for the publisher's poorly received Splinter Cell: Double Agent port and EA's lack of frames in Madden NFL 08 -- at least from a developer's point of view. Consumers may feel otherwise as they await the PS3 arrival of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2.
Ghost Recon creative director moves to Bungie
Christian Allen, former creative director at Red Storm, which creates the Ghost Recon games, has taken a new job at Bungie as "design lead." Allen doesn't say what game he'll be working on, but having been a Marine and working on one of the top military-themed franchises in existence, we're going to guess it involves guns -- which he seems well-versed in. So, super speculation time. Now that Bungie has Halo 3 almost in the bag and they've brought this guy on board, what could they be working on? A Halo-themed squad game? A Halo-themed squad game? Or, a Halo-themed squad game? What, you don't think it'll be a squad game? Ohhh, you don't think it'll be Halo-themed. OK, in other news, Nintendo isn't making Mario games anymore either.
European PSN updates for August 2nd
Here we go. Second week in a row when we've received a demo on the EU PSN Store. How long can Sony keep up this momentum? Well, if the rumours about Lair and Ratchet and Clank demos all having been completed are anything to go by, potentially another two weeks, at least. Here's the "full" release list: Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 demo (free) Lair trailer (free) Juiced 2.0 trailer (free) So you noticed that we surrounded the word full with quotation marks, did you? That's because we can't help but feel a pang of disappointment with this week's update. Demos are always nice, don't get us wrong. Maybe we've been spoiled since E3. At the very least we expected Spyro 2 and Medievil to be back up. Still, for those of you who enjoy the Ghost Recon series, this is a fairly good day. Bit cheeky of Sony to release another Lair trailer after yesterday's news though, don't you think?
Ubisoft's Ghost Recon team developing Beowulf game
Let's face it, the only way an epic English poem is going to make the jump to video game form is if there's a movie adaptation in-between. Beowulf is quite the lucky (or unlucky, depending on your level of cynicism) piece of literature then, as Ubisoft has announced the development of a game based on the upcoming Robert Zemeckis film of the same name. MCV notes that the Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter team is behind the poetic adaptation of the poetic adaptation, with the voice talents of Beowulf stars Angelina Jolie and Anthony Hopkins expected to feature.Speaking at the ongoing Ubidays conference in Paris, Ubisoft Europe chief, Alain Tascan, promised that Beowulf would "reinvent the hack and slash genre." Perhaps the publisher plans switch things up, defy convention and craft a slash and then hack game instead? Let's aim for another King Kong and not another TMNT, shall we?
Ubisoft fourth quarter sales pushed up by warfighters, turtles
Leading to the obvious conclusion: Ubisoft needs to somehow combine the gritty realism of the Tom Clancy franchise with the anthropomorphic antics of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Politically charged yet irresistibly adorable properties like Tom Clancy's Splinter Shell and Tom Clancy's The War on Terrapins are sure to tap into hitherto untapped fountains of marketability and financial prosperity. Not that Ubisoft is currently in dire need of money, mind you. Gamasutra's detailing of L'Ubi's most recent financial report suggests that the publisher is already exceeding analyst expectations by exchanging one type of green for another.The company's fourth quarter sales saw an increase of 37% to $267.5 million, largely instigated by the one million unit success of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 on Xbox 360, as well as the TMNT film-based game which dragged in 1.1 million units in its eight platform-wide net. Sales for the full 2006/2007 fiscal year stand at $923.4 million following a jump of 24.4%, with earlier titles such as Red Steel, Rayman: Raving Rabbids, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas and Petz being key contributors.Ubisoft expects profitability to increase further in the coming year by supporting new-gen consoles and expanding their presence in "the casual market on the Wii and Nintendo DS systems." Oh! We've yet to add casual games into our bubbling cauldron of cross-franchise success! So, that'll be Tom Clancy's Krang Age, then?
Ubisoft viral site hints at new Tom Clancy game
Nowadays, "viral" is more or less the term used to describe any website that is overly cryptic, edgy or, thanks to an abundance of Flash, somewhat annoying. Enter the recently erected, cryptic, edgy and somewhat annoying Ubisoft website, jsf28555833-80604722.com. Upon visiting the page, you'll be faced with all manner of military gibberish, false newscaster mutterings and a man who appears to be in a permanent state of discomfort. The Tom Clancy logo at the bottom provides the biggest clue, seeming to suggest that marketing for a new terrorist foiling sim is already in stealth swing. Splinter Cell and Rainbow Six are fair targets, but a glance at the infamous (and quite reliable) leaked list of Ubisoft games shows one of the few remaining titles to be Tom Clancy's Firehawk for PS3 and Xbox 360. Further intrepid internet investigation (read: Google search) highlights the website's initial letters "jsf" -- Joint Strike Fighter. Is Tom Clancy taking to the skies?[Via Eurogamer]
OXM bribes readers with free GRAW Chapter 2
Speaking to Godfree from Gamertag Radio, Official Xbox Magazine writer Ryan McCaffrey revealed that the April issue will include Chapter 2 of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter for free (the revelation is found 61 minutes into the interview). Chapter 2 was initially released on Xbox Live in June for 1,200 MS points but has since been halved to 600 MS points, or $7.50 in US dollars. Early in the interview, which starts about 36 minutes into the podcast, McCaffrey laments the struggle of getting good content on the included disc to justify its existence, especially with Xbox Live Marketplace being an efficient and convenient means to obtain demos for free. Still, with a purported subscriber base of 425,000, they don't seem to be doing too bad. McCaffrey cited an issue from early last year where their disc included a free 6-week trial of Final Fantasy XI, and noted that they will try to have similar goodies whenever an MMO is slated for Xbox 360.Around the 39 minute mark, McCaffrey also revealed OXM Universe, "a persistent game" found on the disc. The point of the game is to build a probe and spaceship and interact with other OXM subscribers online (presumably online via the computer, though an Xbox Live title would be an interesting test of convergence).Also available on the OXM disc will be the GRAW2 demo as well as an "exclusive review" of the full game. The April issue of OXM will hit newsstands soon for $10 (or $2.50, if you exclude the standard price of GRAW Ch. 2)
