FPS General

Earlier this month, we had the chance to sit down and chat with Theo Sanders, the Creative Director at Ubisoft Singapore working on Ghost Recon Online. 

The team just released the Arctic Pack, a huge content update for Ghost Recon Online that introduced a wealth of new content including an array of new weapons, a brand new multiplayer map and a ton of body armor and headgear variants for players to outfit their character with.

Arctic Pack has been a lot of fun and we're really enjoying the new map, Tomsk-9. Check out our interview with Theo Sanders below!

For readers who might be unfamiliar with you, Theo, can you tell us who you are and what your role is on Ghost Recon Online?

Hi everyone. I’m Theo Sanders, the lead producer for Ghost Recon Online at Ubisoft Singapore. My main role is to ensure we deliver a great player experience across our game development, service, and technology teams.

So, Ubisoft just released the first content expansion for Ghost Recon Online. What was the development process like on this content update?

The Arctic Pack was a challenge for us because we really wanted to provide the community with some cool new content within a month of launching Open Beta. There was a lot of work put into Tomsk-9 and the new arctic skins.  On top of that, we shipped hundreds of incremental improvements to the game in the form of balance tweaks and bug fixes. Building all that content and analyzing the feedback from Open Beta for the fixes led to some very late nights in the studio for the team.

Is it difficult releasing new content, ensuring that the weapons and items are new and fun but also balanced properly with Ghost Recon Online’s hefty arsenal?

Balancing weapons is tricky. We rely on a combination of data analysis and a lot of observation about how players actually use different weapon classes. Weapons also tend to be the most “emotional” of the game systems. When you’ve just been killed a few times in a row by a particular gun, many players draw a quick conclusion that it’s overpowered. So we have to interpret that feedback through the numbers.

Keep reading for the rest of our interview with Theo!

Ubisoft Singapore recently announced that they are going to be releasing the first major content update for Ghost Recon Online tomorrow, September 12th.

The content update, Arctic Pack, brings a ton of great new content to the free-to-play shooter, including:

• Tomsk-9 map
• 6 Arctic Camouflaged Weapon Variants
• L86A1 IW ALP Light Machine Gun
• MK 16 CQC ALP Assault Rifle
• P90 SD ALP Sub-Machine Gun
• M-200 SD ALP Sniper Rifle
• NC2000 C ALP Shotgun
• USP 45 ALP Pistol
• 3 Arctic Camouflaged Headgear Variants
• OCF-FL2 Helmet ALP (for the Assault class)
• ECW-G5 RS Hood ALP (for the Recon  class)
• CBRN-L4 Headgear ALP (for the Specialist  class)
• 2 Arctic Camouflaged Body Armor Variants
• HERMES S-03 Mk. II ALP
• TITAN S-03 MK. II ALP

Check out the launch trailer for Ghost Recon Online's Arctic Pack above and take a look at some screenshots and equipment renders from the content update after the break!

Ubisoft has announced that the Wii U version of their free to play shooter, Ghost Recon Online, is on hold. Indefinitely.

Speaking to VideoGamer.com, Ghost Recon Online Producer Theo Sanders announced that production on the Wii U version of the Ghost Recon Online was making it impossible for the team to focus their full attention on the already released PC version of the game.

Theo Sanders

As of right now, the entire Ghost Recon team is focused on the PC version only. The Wii U version is on hold. If in the future we have an opportunity to address it again, we'll make future announcements. But as of right now we're focused completely on the PC version.

While it is not impossible to see a future in which Ghost Recon Online launches on the Wii U, we're about as confident as Ubisoft. Which is to say, not at all confident.

"It's hard to say how the future will go for Ghost Recon Online," said Sanders "I think in the future as different platforms evolve towards service models and towards being really online-driven, community-driven platforms, then we'll definitely be looking at what our options are."

Source: VideoGamer

Ghost Recon Online (GRO) has officially launched, after a successful period of beta testing. The game, which brings Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon franchise to the world of free to play gaming, is available exclusively on PC.

Ghost Recon Online blends classic tactical shooter gameplay with a modern free to play business model. In our eyes, GRO is a perfect free to play experience.

Downloading Ghost Recon Online and getting started will not cost you a dime. Should you choose to customize your kit in various ways, you have option to do so via microtransactions, but it is not required in any way. Something we've noticed that we love is that Ghost Recon Online is free to play, not 'pay to win'. Plunking down your cash will get you more great options for customization but it's not going to guarantee you instant victories.

Check out the trailer above and visit http://www.ubi.com/ for more on Ghost Recon: Online!

FPS General is happy to bring you an exclusive beta key giveaway for Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Online! We've been playing Ubisoft's free to play third-person shooter in closed beta for some time now and we're so excited for our readers to get a chance to play the game themselves.

Ghost Recon Online blends classic tactical shooter gameplay with a modern free to play business model. Downloading Ghost Recon Online and getting started will not cost you a dime. Should you choose to customize your kit in various ways, you have option to do so via microtransactions, but it is not required in any way. Something we've noticed that we love is that Ghost Recon Online is free to play, not 'pay to win'. Plunking down your cash will get you more great options for customization but it's not going to guarantee you instant victories.

Now, let's get into details on this beta...