What we’re expecting from Ghost Recon: Future Soldier’s beta
Words by: Jamie Tarren | Posted: 1 year ago | Filed under: Features.
Yesterday the closed beta for Ghost Recon: Future Soldier was announced and it’s left many anticipating it’s release. We take a look at what made the series a success and how we expect that success to be shown in Ubisoft’s latest title Future Soldier.
For myself, it all started with Advanced Warfighter and its online game modes. You could host a game and play around with the settings in many ways, which most tactical shooters avoid today. This would involve changing the game timer, spawn times and even weapon loadouts, so you could have those epic sniper battles for an hour-long match. It’s just as important to keep this in Future Soldier, rather than going for match-making, where the settings and game modes are already selected.
In the beta, we’ll have access to two modes called Saboteur and Conflict. Saboteur has two teams competing for a bomb, which spawns in the middle of the map, whilst each team must carry and detonate the bomb in the opponent’s base. It’s similar to Sabotage in Call of Duty, except there’s one bomb at the center of the map, so there’s bound to be more kills and tactics involved. Then there’s Conflict, which is a points-based mission type involving a range of objectives spread across the map. Both modes offer a different approach to the usual Team Deathmatch, instead they’re objective-based modes, but I’m certain that TDM will be introduced as standard with the full game. Generally, both modes sound as though they’ve moved more towards Call of Duty, but let’s hope they still have that tactical approach, which fans grew to love.
The map design is just as important as game modes – from lagoons to military camps, the Ghost Recon series has visited a wide range of locations. Many of them being original and offering players plenty of areas within the map to have gun battles. If you’re a sniper there’s always bound to be a balcony or clifftop to pick off easy targets, and for close range attacks; there’s usually a variety of flanking points in the form of tunnels or alleyways. Add these into the mix and you’ve got an action-packed multiplayer match.
The closed beta has two maps: Mill and Pipeline, both of which sound very similar, but could range in detail. It will also be interesting to see if the developers included interactive areas on each map such as a button to open a door into a warehouse. Judging by the two map titles, both will be themed around industrialised equipment and buildings, but you never know what could lie behind a name. One thing I’m hoping for though, is a major difference between the two maps or maybe a twist – where the title isn’t actually anything to do with a mill.
Fans to the series will know that Ghost Recon has a great selection of guns from today’s armoury. By giving players a choice they can play to their own style, rather than encouraging players to camp in one part of the map for an entire round. Just about every map on Ghost Recon is large, so one would hope for something similar on Future Soldier. Also, just because of the large size, it doesn’t necessarily mean camping will be easier – as there’s a variety of ways to kill a camper using your gadgets available. It would also be nice to see the use of attachments – Rainbow Six Vegas provided players with suppressors and high-capacity magazines to make just about every player’s loadout unique to another player’s setup. Ubisoft were already keen to show us Kinect’s use with GR: Future Soldier, which presented a range of attachments and even a firing range to try weapons, so customisation is key to any shooter wanting to remain addictive for the player.
The closed beta begins on 19th April and ends on 2nd May, so that’s about two weeks of playing time to get through. I hope everyone on board manages to try out all the maps, modes and weapons and I’ll probably see you out their on the battlefield.
About Jamie Tarren
Jamie is the Assistant Editor for Xboxer360. He shares a passion for gaming and will happily play most genres. He also likes to wear sunglasses, both inside and outside to look cool.
