Ghost Recon Breakpoint’s worldwide launch is almost here, but thanks to early access provided by the game’s Ultimate Edition launch, many players have already dived into Ubisoft next big open world titles. And like most Ubisoft games, Breakpoint is large, dense, and has a lot of systems in place for players to engage with. To ease you into the game in its first few hours, in this feature, we’ve put together a few basic tips and tricks to get you started. Without further ado, let’s get started.
STARTING CLASS
Soon after beginning Ghost Recon Breakpoint, when you level up for the first time, the game will ask you to pick a starting class for your character. There’s four of them in total, but which one is the best, you ask? The answer will, of course, vary from player to player, but we’d recommend the Panther class. It’s most suited to those who like the stealthy approach, and stealth is more often than not the way to go in Breakpoint. The Panther class’ unique skill also allows you to throw down a smokescreen during combat, which essentially allows you to vanish entirely, while suppressors attached to your weapons also don’t reduce damage if you pick Panther, which is, as you can imagine, very useful.
XP BOOST
You level up and gain skill points pretty quickly in the first few hours of Ghost Recon Breakpoint, but what’s the upgrade that you should unlock with your very first skill point? You’ll get four options, and the one that you should ideally go with is the one that gives you an XP boost on all kills. Having that extra XP in your pocket at all times right from the beginning of the game is quite handy and allows you to level up faster, while it’s not like your next skill point is too far away, so you won’t be missing out on any major, necessary skills for too long either.
PARACHUTE
Once you’ve unlocked the XP boost upgrade, the one we would recommend going for next is the parachute. Aerial transportation is something you’ll be doing a lot of – at least whenever you can find a chopper – but landing choppers close to enemy encampments and strongholds is obviously not a very stealthy approach, considering how much noise you’d be making. Jumping mid-air over these encampments and then deploying your parachute is much more silent, not to mention the fact that having that parachute just makes traversal a lot more fun, and at times, a lot quicker.
NIGHT VISION
Bafflingly, night vision in Ghost Recon Breakpoint is an unlockable upgrade rather than a gadget. Thankfully though, it’s one of the first upgrades you’ll unlock (perhaps even the very first), so it’s not like you’re without it for too long. And you definitely should get it as quickly as possible- as soon as you’ve got the XP boost and the parachute out of the way. You’ll find yourself traversing the open world at nighttime quite a bit, and if you ever run into enemies in such situations (or if you ever do a mission when it’s dark), your night vision can give you a notable edge over your foes.
LOADOUT
There’s a lot of weapons in Breakpoint, as you can probably imagine, so the decision of which loadout you should have on you is one you’ll be making repeatedly. That said, more often than not, having a sniper rifle and an assault rifle as your primary weapons is the way to go. Picking off enemies and drones with your sniper rifle from a distance before moving in to kill enemies with a silenced assault rifle is often the most efficient and effective method of clearing missions.
STAMINA
Ghost Recon Breakpoint introduces a lot of survival elements to its core gameplay, true to its narrative premise of you being stranded in a hostile place, outnumbered and outmatched, and one that you’ll have to keep an eye on quite a bit is stamina. Running constantly or even running downhill will eat away your stamina bar quite quickly, and even though it will regenerate, if you push yourself too hard, you’ll get fatigued, slashing a chunk of your max stamina temporarily. Drinking from your canteen replenishes your stamina, so always make sure to keep your canteen refilled.
EXPLORATION MODE
Like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Ghost Recon Breakpoint offers players to options for how you want to interact with the open world. There’s the Guided Mode, which just marks the location you need to head to for quests directly, and there’s Exploration Mode, which gives you hints about the general area you need to head to, following which you have to find your destination yourself. And just like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Exploration Mode is far better than Guided Mode. It makes exploration more than just a “follow this marker” exercise, making you actually interact with the game’s world, and though the world itself isn’t nearly as good as the one in Odyssey, it’s still made significantly more fun in Exploration Mode.
BIVOUACS
Bivouacs are fast travel points in Ghost Recon Breakpoint, and it goes without saying, but you should activate on as soon as you spot one close to where you are. You can spot them from pillars of white smoke rising into the sky, and there’s usually several of these close to you no matter where you are. Not only do they make traversal quicker, they’re also extremely handy for letting you craft things, fast forward the time, prepare for your missions, and more.
SYRINGES
One of the survival mechanics introduced in Ghost Recon Breakpoint sees your character getting injured upon taking too much damage, which affects health regeneration, slows down your movement, can affect your aiming, and be detrimental in other ways depending on how bad your injuries are. Syringes are a quick and easy way of healing your injuries, so make sure to always have plenty of them with you. You’ll often find them out in the open world, while any time you rest at a Bivuoac, you should make sure to craft some for yourself.
MISSION PREPARATION
Besides crafting and letting you fast travel, Bivouacs are useful for one more thing- mission preparation. With mission preparation, your character does some thing or the other while resting at a bivouac, and depending on what you chose, you get a temporary boost. From XP gain to stamina to a number of other attributes, you can get a variety of temporary boosts, and making use of them before heading into missions depending on how you’re going to approach it can actually prove quite useful.
DISMANTLING
Ghost Recon Breakpoint has added a loot game to its central loop, which means that the game will constantly be throwing tons of new weapons and gear at you. That, of course, means that you probably won’t be sticking to using any single weapon or armour piece for too long before switching up to something new and better – at least in the earlier hours. So always make sure to keep going into your inventory to dismantle any and all gear pieces that are too low level and effectively useless. Doing so will net you with valuable crafting resources, and free up space in your inventory.