Ubisoft announced that the Open Beta of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint for Xbox One, PS4, and PC will be held from September 26 to 29, 2019.
In a post in the Ghost Recon Breakpoint site, Ubisoft said that their teams were able to apply many changes and improvements to the game following the feedback they received from the Closed Beta. Below are the details on pre-load and access times, as well as content that will be available for you to play.
PRELOAD AND OPEN BETA TIMES
GAMEPLAY CONTENT
The Open Beta will have a few more story missions and access to new regions than the Closed Beta. What is more, the players can now try out the game’s PvP mode, Ghost War. The following are the new additions to the game.
I. PvP
Battle it out against other Ghosts in this competitive mode to test your skills.
- Four Maps: Skell Port, PMC Camp, Cold War Bunker and Deserted Harbor.
- One Mode: Elimination.
II. Regions
You will have access to the following six regions:
- New! New Argyll
- New! Infinity
- Sinking Country
- Fen Bog
- Smuggler Coves
- Mount Hodgson
III. Missions
- Operation Greenstone:
- Eagles Down
- No Way Out
- New! Back To Basics
- New! Skell On The Move
- New! The Enemy Of My Enemy
Auroa Missions: Side missions to discover more about the island and its inhabitants:
- One Man’s Hell
- Ghost Of The Past
- A Soul In Rest
Faction Missions: Twelve new Faction Missions per day. For every available region, 2 Faction missions will be playable every day in each region.
IV. Drone Areas
Looking to really test your skills? Find three different types of Drone Areas throughout the available regions and test your skills against some of your toughest opponents.
- Murmurs: Small flying drones that will swarm the unprepared (I hated these in the Closed Beta).
- Aamons: Mid-size land drones that pack a punch with agility to match.
- Behemoths: Large drones with massive firepower and heavy armor.
It is important to note that progress will not transfer from the Open Beta to the launch version of the game. Our guess is that while the Open Beta will have a much more recent build than the one we had in the Closed Beta, it might not be compatible with the final build.
What the Open Beta will offer though, are updates and fixes based on feedback taken from the Closed Beta.
In a new blog post, Ubisoft reiterated that Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint is a live game with a long post-launch ahead of it. Given how they supported Ghost Recon Wildlands, I am inclined to believe that statement.
Below you will find the updates and improvements made to the open beta based on the feedback they received:
MAIN CHARACTER:
I. BETTER CONTROLS
HIGHER CONTROL RESPONSIVENESS
- Enhanced responsiveness for the main character so that the controls feel smoother.
- Faster acceleration and stops of the main character, resulting in a decreased feeling of inertia.
- Faster weapon swaps for increased responsiveness when changing weapons.
- Faster stance changes to adapt more quickly to the situation.
- Faster interaction with chests to loot them.
- Less paralysis time after injury trigger (faster recovery of the controls).
- Faster entry into vehicles.
II. CANCELATION OF ONGOING ACTION
- Ability to cancel opening the chest.
- Ability to cancel car entries by moving
thestick away from the interaction. - Faster cancelation of intel-gathering interactions.
III. BETTER WALK / RUSH ANIMATION
NEW RUSH ANIMATION
Rush Animation of the main character has been modified to be more natural.
Better terrain analysis when running to more accurately display correct animation.
IV. CAMERA
BETTER CAMERA FOR SHOOTING FROM A VEHICLE
Camera framing from passenger seats has been improved for better shooting opportunities.
V. CO-OP REPLICATION IMPROVEMENTS
DEBUGGED ONLINE REPLICATION OF OTHER GHOSTS
Many fixes for various replication issues while playing in co-op, to ensure more coherent visuals and prevent unintended behavior like sliding, teleportation, and incorrect positioning.
VI. DEBUGGED ONLINE REPLICATION OF NPCS
Many fixes for various replication issues with NPCs to ensure more coherent visuals and prevent unintended behavior like sliding, teleportation, and incorrect positioning.
VII. VEHICLES
HANDBRAKE AND DRIFTING BEHAVIOR
Improved handbrake behavior on vehicles, which allow the players to better handle/control the vehicle while drifting.
SLOPES
The ground vehicles are less affected by the angle of the slopes to provide a less frustrating and more coherent driving experience.
TRAVELING WITH HELICOPTERS MORE ACCESSIBLE
More helicopters distributed to grant greater ease of access to the open world.
Sparrow helicopter is now accessible by default at the bivouac right away.
More helipad locations available.
All helicopters are now shown in the Erewhon shop menu without having to unlock them in the Skill Tree.
VIII. AI
SMARTER AI (BETTER BEHAVIOR)
- Improvements made to help prevent NPCs from becoming stuck in walls.
- AI camp states are more reliable, resulting in consistent and logical behavior.
- NPCs related to specific missions improved to better move and follow more accurately.
- Improvements made to provide more logical enemy sniper behavior so they remain at or near their vantage points.
- NPCs will now take cover in a more realistic and logical way.
IX. GAMEPLAY
Increased the window of opportunity to avoid the call for reinforcement.
- The time before the reinforcements arrive has been increased, meaning players will have more time to react and kill the archetype Radio Operator.
- Mortar is now far less precise, to give players more opportunities to move and avoid the hits.
X. WIDE-RANGE DIFFICULTY
MORE ACCESSIBLE EASY & NORMAL DIFFICULTY LEVELS
- Regular difficulty level has been turned down a little bit to prevent difficulty peaks.
- Arcade difficulty level is has been adjusted to be easier:
- Enemiy AI are less powerful, meaning they do less damage than before.
- Life regeneration of the main character is faster.
- Aim assistance has been increased to make a wide area of tolerance in which the players don’t have to aim precisely to target an enemy.
- Aim assist has increased precision.
- MORE REALISTIC EXPERIENCE IN EXTREME DIFFICULTY
- The red lights on the mini-map that indicate enemy presence have been removed in Extreme Difficulty to provide increased immersion and challenge.
XI. UX / UI
SHOP MENU
SHOP IN BIVOUAC
All the functionalities provided in the shop in Erewhon are now accessible at any bivouac in the world.
EREWHON SHOP MENU
- Improved menu feedback when buying or selling items.
- Differentiated weapon and gear camos in the buy menu.
- Shorter timer for refresh of weapons and gear available for purchase.
XII. EXPLORATION ICONS
Improved the locations icons display on the tacmap.
- Behemoth areas are now discovered by default on the tacmap.
- Each Behemoth displays the unique reward it gives when their challenge is complete.
- Location discovery using drone recon has been improved to reward players with more intel.
- Unique item chests now have specific icons that promote the type of reward it contains (e.g. unique customization gear, weapon blueprints, skill points). Chests containing Skell Credits are marked with the basic chest icon.
- Exposition of mission intel is improved in the Objective Board.
- Sidequest mission-givers in the open world are now easier to discover.
A MORE GUIDED EXPERIENCE
- Guided mode is now the default mode when beginning the game.
- Players can still switch between Exploration and Guided mode at any time using the in-game menu.
- Non-equipped missions and objectives are now displayed on the tacmap in Guided mode.
- All undiscovered locations on the tacmap are displayed in Guided mode with question marks.
- Increased UI display options: you can now choose if the map shows questions marks for undiscovered locations in the Gameplay menu if you do not wish to see points of interest already marked.
EREWHON
In Erewhon, the offline avatars standing around the table are the player’s friends instead of unknown players.
XIII. PROGRESSION
PROGRESSION BALANCING
ECONOMY
Fixed various economy balancing issues.
XIV. CHALLENGES
Class challenges have been balanced to be more rewarding.
XV. SAVES
Fixed various issues that caused save files and/or inventory to be lost.
XVI. GRAPHICS
ALL PLATFORMS
Improvements made to objects and level of detail to create a better visual experience.
PC
- The options for textures on PC now has better resolution.
- Better options offered to let players choose between visual quality vs. frame rate.
We will be adding continuous improvements to the game at launch, which will include:
- Weapon audio improvements.
- Debug of vehicle entry interaction.
- Better camera consistency with the main character.
- Improved audio cues when concealed, hit, injured, etc.
- Improved audio on vehicles.
- Slower vehicles (like SUVs) speed increased.
It is nice to know that Ubisoft is taking these BETA tests very seriously. After all, player feedback is what helped them to improve Ghost Recon Wildlands. Hopefully players reciprocate and report any issues they may experience on the open beta forums once they are active next week.
We’ll see you on the field, Ghosts.