GameTech: End of beginning for Fortnite as Chapter 2 finally goes live

Millions of gamers watched Fortnite reach breaking point on Sunday night, with ten seasons of mysterious storyline culminating in meteors hitting the island and everything disappearing. It was called The End, and some people (including this writer’s nephew) worried that Fortnite really was gone forever.

Safe to say, we didn’t have to wait long for the battle bus to return. After a few days of inactivity, in which players could only see a black hole in place of the island, Fortnite returned with a completely revamped map and ‘Chapter 2’ of the megahit game.

Aside from a completely new island, there are fresh weapon designs, vehicles and — most importantly — tactical considerations to make as the landscape has literally changed for 100 million gamers. Perhaps the most startling aspect of The End was how much people missed Fortnite for the short time it was gone.

GHOST RECON

Games really don’t get irony, do they? Sometimes a name says it all, but not for the reasons the developer wants. Welcome to Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Breakpoint.

Let’s get the positives out of the way — they aren’t particularly lengthy. In some cases, the primary purpose of a game is simply distraction. Like a soldier deploying a decoy, sometimes we need our attention diverted from everyday life. In that regard, Ghost Recon: Breakpoint is a vaguely competent looter shooter, albeit one that will never challenge your senses or skills.

The best comparison is probably a mid-budget action movie, the kind that has little charm and no original qualities, but is perfectly fine to run in the background while you’re on the phone or listening to a match.

That’s where the positive qualities end for Ghost Recon: Breakpoint. We expect more from our big budget games, and Breakpoint simply doesn’t deliver. It’s yet another example of a long-running series being warped and reshaped into a live service platform, becoming nothing more than soulless busywork.

Previous Ghost Recon games focused mainly on stealth and specific missions, and were arguably gaming’s premier big budget military simulator. They weren’t perfect by any means, but they were crafted with enough care and attention to please fans of more tactical real-world shooters. You could even complete many missions without firing a gun.

Breakpoint makes the shift to open-world live service instead, with all the action taking place on the most boring island in the world, Auroa. Your job is to run around the island doing bland missions, all building up to a showdown with a former Ghost agent called Walker, who has taken over the island with drones. It’s all terribly average, if not just terrible.

The only way to get ‘strong’ enough to take on Walker is by levelling up your character’s skills, abilities and equipment, which means Ubisoft have designed the game around the aforementioned mission busywork and online services.

Anyone who has played The Division series will recognise the structure, with player hubs and online co-operative play prioritised over the previously stealthy Ghost Recon gameplay. Everywhere you turn, there are new loot drops and incentives to keep switching out weapons and buying micro transactions.

If Breakpoint was particularly stylish,enjoyable, original or — franky — fun, then we could overlook the live service shift. But the game is often buggy, players are reporting crashes and it’s simply joyless. There are far better equivalent distractions on the market, like Destiny or Borderlands 3. A breaking point for the series.

CAPTAIN LASERHAWK

Finally, despite Ubisoft making a hash of their Ghost Recon universe, they seem to be making some interesting moves in the world of cinematic universes.

The French giant has announced that Adi Shankar, who produced the Castlevania animated series, will also make a series based on Far Cry: Blood Dragon, called Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Vibe.

It’s a great choice for an animated series and we’re looking forward to seeing the results. Ubisoft are also expected to launch a Rayman show, a Watchdogs show aimed at young adults and, erm, maybe even a show based on the mobile game Hungry Sharks.

We’re usually sceptical of this kind of gaming-TV crossover, but Ubisoft have proven their writing chops with the Rabbids, Rayman and even Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, so this could be an exception.