Ubisoft knows that it has an audience who loved the earlier Ghost Recon games, which emphasised tactics over gung-ho actions, something that the franchise has slowly been moving away from in recent titles. If you’ve been feverishly hoping that Ubisoft would eventually ditch these ideas and go back to what made the Ghost Recon games so unique in the first place, then you are going to be disappointed.
In an interview with OXM Magazine, UK Brand Manager Matt Benson described how there are certain realities that influence the development of a game. “It’s the balance these days, with the rising costs of development. It puts real pressure on us to make sure that we strike that balance between the creative and the commercialâ€.
“There’s always going to be that hardcore player. There’s always going to be super-hardcore players and you’re never going to keep them happy. They’re just going to want the first Ghost Recon on first-gen Xbox, and they’re going to want to be lying on the ground, camoed up, waiting 10 minutes for a guard to walk all the way back round and then pop him.â€
“And that’s fine, but in terms of where we are right now as an industry, there are commercial needs that need to be met in order for us to make the game in the first place. That’s the balance you’ve got to strike. And that doesn’t mean dumbing down, although obviously the net is very quick to say, ‘Oh, they’re dumbing down Splinter Cell, they’re dumbing down this, they’re dumbing that’.â€
If you’re a super-hardcore fan of the series who has been complaining about the recent shifts in Ghost Recon gameplay, then get ready to moan even more, as all future games that fall under the Tom Clancy banner are going to have some form of Kinect compatibility, in order to appeal to a wider audience. Still, from a business standpoint, it makes sense for Ubisoft to appeal to as many people as possible, otherwise there would be no point in continuing the franchise of Ghost Recon games.
Source: OXM.co.uk
Last Updated: July 8, 2011
