The Ghost Recon franchise lately has always been about large open spaces that can be attacked from any angle. Now, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Frontline is about being attacked from any angle in large open spaces by 100 people.
Cynicism aside, it’s kind of surprising that the Ghost Recon franchise hasn’t been turned into a battle royale already. But Ghost Recon Frontline, a free-to-play shooter launching on PC, last-gen consoles and next-gen consoles (but not the Switch), hopes to rectify that.
“Shape the battlefield around you by calling in tactical reinforcements such as deadly auto-turrets, smoke screen drones and massive barricades,” the official website says.
According to the official footage, Frontline has players battling it out to complete objectives, rather than a straight “last man standing” style dogfight. In a move that’s apt for the franchise it’s based on — and also reminiscent of Ghost Recon: Wildlands — players can gather intel from the battlefield, as well as info on other enemies from players they’ve downed.
Mirroring The Division and games like Escape from Tarkov, players leave the battlefield by calling in an extraction team. That triggers a helicopter which comes in and drops a little white circle on the field, triggering all sorts of chaos in the final moments.
The Ghost Recon battle royale is being made by Ubisoft Bucharest, a studio which advertises itself as the second biggest studio in the publisher’s stable. The Bucharest studio was founded in 1992 and was Ubisoft’s first studio outside of France, with the original mission of porting Ubisoft titles over to PC. These days, Ubisoft Bucharest has mostly co-developed Assassin’s Creed, Just Dance and Tom Clancy games in conjunction with other Ubisoft studios.
Ghost Recon Frontline isn’t the only first-person shooter out of Ubi, though. Earlier this year the company announced XDefiant, another first-person shooter in the Tom Clancy universe which will also be partly developed by new hires out of Ubi’s Sydney office. Ubisoft Massive’s long-awaited Avatar game will also be first-person, although it’s more likely Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora will draw some of its structure from the MMO-like The Division series.
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Frontline doesn’t have an official release date, but it will have a closed beta test for PC from October 14 to 21 internationally. The beta won’t be available in Australia, nor will it be on consoles, although Ubi said it would include more countries in future beta waves.
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