Players will be able to customise their gameplay experience in Breakpoint and play as the new Engineer class.
The update on March 24, 2020 will include a new class, quality-of-life updates, new story content, updates to the PvP Ghost War mode, and the Ghost Experience game mode. Ghost Experience would allow players to continue playing the game as it is, or opt for an immersive experience where the gear level and tiered loot system is disabled. Players will also have the ability to create their own custom experience through various settings.
This new game mode seems to be a major focus for the developers as they have stated that the originally planned second raid has been cancelled in favour of a future update to Ghost Experience, which means that Project Titan remains as the game’s only raid.
Furthermore, Breakpoint will be moving forward into Episode 2 content with Year 1 Pass owners being able to play the new Deep State adventure and get early access to the new Engineer Class. Non Year 1 Pass owners will get the class a week later, on March 31.
The Engineer class seems to be centred around drones as not only do they deal more damage to them, their special ability and class tool are drones too. Players can send out a Defensive Drone to engage nearby enemies as their special ability, which sounds a lot like the Striker Drone in Division 2. If your teammates need more ammunition, the Engineer can deploy their class tool, an Ammo Supply Drone.
The patch also includes community requested updates such as the ability to set the camera distance from the player character, new respawn points, improvements to vehicle handling, and enhancements to the BASE-jumping system. I am also glad to see that inventory management is one of the areas that they worked on.
Players will be able to mark items as favourites, equip the best gear available in their inventory with a press of a button, and better sort their items with the new sorting options being added. If a player wishes to get rid of their non-favourited items or items that are not currently equipped, there is now an option to either sell or dismantle all of them. In a game with a gear level system, these features would make it less of a chore when cleaning out your inventory after a few firefights or looting spree.
However, for those that do not want to play with a gear level system, the new customisable Ghost Experience game mode might just be for you. Let us take a closer look at what it comes with.
The Ghost Experience
With Ghost Experience, players will be able to choose between two presets, being either the Regular Experience, which is how the game currently is with the gear level and tiered loot system, or the Immersive Experience where these systems are non-existent.
Ubisoft released a trailer about it and you can watch it here:
Based on the trailer, the Immersive Experience would give you the option of sticking with your preferred weapons throughout the game. Additionally, with the realistic looting system, you can pick up weapons from slain enemies and if you are looking for gear, you can obtain them by completing missions, receiving them as a reward, or looting crates.
Other than the Regular Experience or Immersive Experience presets, players can choose from various settings to create their own custom experience. Some of these settings include being able to only carry 1 primary weapon, limiting or removing health regeneration, and losing the remaining rounds left in a magazine when reloading. If you wish, you can enable or disable the gear level system anytime too.
There is also the option of setting the game to Private Mode where there will only be story characters and your co-op teammates in Erewhon. I am definitely enabling this as it was a little immersion breaking to see so many other Ghosts in Erewhon as according to the story, there were only supposed to be a handful of survivors, other than Nomad.
What is even better about this? You can still play with your friends regardless of your chosen preset or the settings that you have set up for yourself. Your chosen preset or settings will only apply to you, and can be changed at any time.
There are some caveats to Ghost Experience though. Gear level will need to be enabled to play the Project Titan raid. Same goes for the Ghost War mode as well.
My Thoughts
As a game, Breakpoint definitely had some serious issues. It faced an identity crisis where it was not sure if it wants to be a tactical game or a looter shooter. The gear level and loot system always felt out of place in a Ghost Recon game, being a tactical shooter franchise and all. If I really wanted a looter shooter set in the Tom Clancy universe, I already have The Division 2 for that.
With this update, it does show that Ubisoft is listening to its fans by incorporating features requested by the community while offering an option for those wanting a more tactical and immersive experience out of Breakpoint.
I am definitely looking forward to jumping back into Breakpoint when the patch drops to play around with the Ghost Experience game mode and experiment with the different settings to create my own version of how I want to play the game. Having a new class to play around with and new story content is nice too.
Post published: 10 March 2020
Last updated: 11 March 2020
Update: Edited the part that talked about the community requested updates and some sentences about the Ghost Experience. Fixed some grammar mistakes too.
Writing With Biscuits 