Ubisoft ends Ghost Recon Breakpoint updates

Ghost Recon Breakpoint
(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Ghost Recon Breakpoint was a mess at launch—"tedious and confused," we said in our 40% review—but Ubisoft stuck with it through fixes, updates, and the launch of a Friends Pass and free trial edition. There hasn't been any real news from the game since the release of the Operation Motherland update in October 2021, though, and today Ubisoft confirmed that there will be no further content updates.

"The last four months marked the release of our final piece of content: The brand new Operation Motherland mode, tons of new items including 20th anniversary iconic outfits and Quartz items for Ghost Recon Breakpoint," Ubisoft said in a message posted to Twitter.

"We will continue to maintain our servers for both Ghost Recon Wildlands and Ghost Recon Breakpoint and we truly hope you will continue to enjoy the game and have fun playing in solo or co-op with your friends."

It might initially feel like Ubisoft is washing its hands of Breakpoint after some perfunctory handwaving at fixing its worst problems, but ending new content updates two years after release isn't entirely unreasonable. Support for The Division 2 was intended to end two years after its 2019 release (until Ubisoft dropped a surprise announcement of new content plans for 2021), and Ghost Recon Wildlands' final major update also arrived just over two years after the game's 2017 launch. Fans might feel let down, but at least compared to previous releases, it's not an unreasonable time frame to end updates.

Reaction to the news on Twitter and Reddit could be described as cynical resignation: Unhappy that Ubisoft is walking away, but accepting that it was bound to happen. Some fans have expressed gratitude to Ubisoft for continuing to support Breakpoint for this long after such a rough start, while others complain that it's still a mess in many ways; there's plenty of free advice on how to improve the next Ghost Recon game, and of course the inevitable predictions of doom and gloom for Ghost Recon Frontline, the free-to-play battle royale announced last year. 

That game got off to a very rough start too: A planned beta was halted just one day before it was meant to go live, reportedly because of a powerful negative response to its 2021 announcement. A closed beta test for Frontline did eventually take place in early 2022, but there's still no sign of a release date.

Andy Chalk

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.

TOPICS