Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Subliminal message warning: Ubisoft have just announced the closed beta of Ghost Recon Online kicks off next month. That month? March. See how I snuck it into the headline? You already knew before you got to the story. The first raft of Ghosts will be let into the secretive world of the closed beta on the fifth of next month. You can sign up here and pray you’re chosen. I’m quite looking forward to running around pretending to be a ghost. Bagsy Slimer! There’s a video to run alongside the announcement. I’m about to watch it for the first time, so do join me.
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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.

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Ubisoft’s devs are keen to talk up the hardcore and “high-quality” credentials of their forthcoming free-to-play offering Ghost Recon Online in their new dev diary, which you can see below. They talk a bit about how it emerged from “hardcore” PC games, and argue that the most important aspect of bringing it to PC is making it feel responsive enough. It is apparently a third-person shooter that “plays a lot like a first-person shooter”. Hm! There’s a lot of game footage in there, and lots of commentary from the devs. Take a look.
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Speaking to CVG, Ubisoft’s Theo Sanders said of Ghost Recon games on PC: “We knew it was a platform we wanted to come back to. However, until recently, the retail market for PC made it difficult to invest in a big, dedicated product.” He went on to explain the move to create Ghost Recon Online, which will be Ubisoft’s first proper crack at the free to play way of doing things, is down to exciting new “online business models”: “The emergence of online business models has brought back the opportunity to produce something dedicated to PC fans, rather than just ported multiplatform content.”

So that’s good. You can apply for the Ghost Recon Online beta over here.