Last Friday afternoon, 40 developers from Ubisoft Paris gathered to strike in the first labour stoppage of Ubisoft’s history. It's the capper on what has been a turbulent month for the company. Three weeks ago Ubisoft announced they were cancelling three unannounced games amid “worsening macroeconomic conditions.” In a letter to employees, CEO Yves Guillemot said that “the ball is in your court” in regard to hitting deadlines and overturning Ubisoft’s sticky financial situation. French union Solidaires Informatique said that Guillemot’s "words mean something: overtime, managerial pressure, burnout, etc," and called on Ubisoft Paris employees to strike for better pay and working hours. It seems some devs heard the call.
]]>To celebrate the Ghost Recon games turning 20 years old next month, Ubisoft last night announced Ghost Recon frontline, a free-to-play battle royale shooter. But they haven't entirely forgotten the roots of the tactical shooter series, because they're giving the first game away free for keepsies right now. You've got a few days to grab 2001's Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon and remember the good ol' days. Ubi are giving away some DLC for the latest games too.
]]>Today, Ubisoft will announce a new game in the "Tom Clancy's" universe, but don't get your hopes up for a new Splinter Cell just yet. While Ubisoft themselves haven't said much about what they're revealing, a few snippets of gameplay have already been released, and it sure looks like Call Of Duty: The Division. I shan't knock it until we've seen more, however, so come join us at 7pm BST (11am PT) to catch the reveal stream.
]]>Ghost Recon: Wildlands [official site] captured the scale of its outdoor environments well enough to distract me completely from the noise and lights of E3’s gargantuan South Hall. Lying prone on a hill, scanning an enemy encampment in the valley below, I was reminded of a game I haven’t thought about for a long time. Delta Force, released by NovaLogic back in the late nineties, used a voxel-based engine to implement enormous draw distances. I’d never seen anything quite like it back in 1998 and while Wildlands doesn’t seem quite as fresh to older eyes, it’s a game that won me over within minutes of setting my hands on a controller.
]]>The Division [official site] has ensnared at least two members of RPS in its deadly streets, and as we creep through cover toward a better understanding of the game, we've taken a moment to reflect on the games that came before. Specifically, the games that carry the name of author Tom Clancy. From Rainbow Six to Ghost Recon and HAWX, the Clancyverse contains some of the finest tactical shooters that the PC has ever seen - and a few duds as well. Jake Tucker investigated the triumphs, the failures, and the origins of the Clancy game.
]]>Humble Bundles normally pass me by these days, but this week's Humble Tom Clancy Bundle, is worth a second look. For whatever fee you fancy you can get Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six, Rainbow Six 3, Rainbow Six Vegas, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Ghost Recon and access to the multiplayer beta for Rainbow Six Siege. Pay over the average of $8.09 (£5.29) however and you also get Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Splinter Cell, and Splinter Cell Conviction.
Less Patriot Games, more Pay-What-You-Want Games, eh? Eh?
]]>Tim Schafer has taught game developers how to dream...how to dream about having piles of cash to work on projects that they reckon people crave enough to pledge some of Earth's rapidly dwindling stockpile of money for. The latest veteran to pitch to the public is Christian Allen of Serellan. Admittedly I didn't know the name but it turns out Mr Allen has worked on more Ghost Recon games than I've actually played, as well as being lead designer on Halo: Reach. But what does he want from you? MONEY MONEY MONEY. And why? So that he can make a hardcore tactical shooter. And why am I covering this? Read on.
]]>The hamsters of Ubisoft Singapore's employees must have the most luxurious cages of all the rodents. I imagine their owners coming home with a pile of Tom Clancy books and world bibles and tossing them at the paper-loving cricetinaes, saying: "we don't need these anymore". Ghost Recon Online looks like a fun free-to-play shooter, but realism is not its focus, as is evident in the trailer below.
]]>First it was happening and then it wasn't cos of mad piracy paranoia and there was a bunch of shouting and it was horrible and now it is happening again! Sometimes having a moan really does work, though it is better to moan politely and with words that don't mostly begin with 'f'.
]]>Oh dear. The context in which I find myself writing about Ghost Recon Online is very different to the context in which I played it. It was all sunshine and daisies and shotgun shells then, but now it's blood and mud and he said she said and everyone knows best and everyone else knows nothing. What I'm not going to do, though, is discuss the controversial comments made about completely different Ghost Recon game and one man's troubling take on the state of PC gaming, so I'd be grateful if you could keep arguments about Future Soldier to the thread about Future Soldier. I'm talking about Ghost Recon Online, a game specifically made for PC and PC only (at least for now - apparently there's a WeeeeOooooo version due after Nintendo's bizarre console/tablet thing launches), and one mercifully sidesteps piracy and DRM arguments due to being an inherently online game with persistent player ranks and whatnot.
Here's the thing about GRO: it's a free to play, mulitplayer-only shooter. And it's pretty good. That doesn't have to be an oxymoron after all.
]]>Is it Thanksgiving or Groundhog day? I could have sworn it was yesterday that news emerged of a Ubisoft title not being released on PC, with anguished claims about rampant piracy being blamed. Now it's the turn of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier and although the quotes given to PC Gamer don't actually accuse us all of 'bitching', they do paint an unpleasant view of the PC gaming landscape. We're told that Ghost Recon Online is the PC's alternative to Ghost Recon: Future Soldier.
'Why', you ask? Senior producer Sebastien Arnoult has the answers. Or at least, some answers. "When we started Ghost Recon Online we were thinking about Ghost Recon: Future Solider; having something ported in the classical way without any deep development, because we know that 95 per cent of our consumers will pirate the game." Sigh.
]]>So, that major new PC game Ubisoft were on about the other week? It's not Assassin's Creed Online. It's not World of Rayman. It's not Multiple Splinter Cells. It's not Silent HunterVille. It's Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Online, it's a third-person tactical shooter, it will be free to play, and it will be PC-only. Is Mr Clancy OK with that? I bet he doesn't like giving stuff away for free.
Find out more and watch the first video of GRO, as I've decided everyone will probably start calling it, below.
]]>Alec has vanished into the Oxford countryside, probably on a mission of some kind, but it could just be he got loose after dark. Either way, his preview of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is up over here. Here's a bit that is illustrative and relevant:
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