It's no surprise that the recently launched Ubisoft title, "Ghost Recon: Breakpoint," failed to resonate with gamers. The title received a flurry of bad reviews when it released earlier this month. Now, the company's CEO has given a brutally honest appraisal of the game's performance.
In a press conference on Thursday, Oct. 24. Ubisoft co-founder and CEO, Yves Guillemot, admitted that the critical reception and sales numbers of "Ghost Recon Breakpoint" were "disappointing" before explaining the reasons behind the failure of the first-person shooter.
"For Ghost Recon Breakpoint, while the game's quality appeared on track – based on E3, Gamescom, previews and our latest internal playtests –, critical reception and sales during the game's first weeks were very disappointing," Guillemot said. "As we have done with past titles, we will continue to support the game and listen to the community in order to deliver the necessary improvements."
Although Guillemot did not share figures, he did mention that the publisher had made a "sharp downward revision" in revenues expected from "Ghost Recon Breakpoint" and "The Division 2," which also underperformed but not as severely as Ubisoft's latest offering.
Guillemot pointed out that the changes introduced to the "Ghost Recon" franchise with "Breakpoint" were "strongly rejected" by the majority of the gaming community. He also noted the title's negative critical reception, adding that the game did not include enough unique features to distinguish it from other available titles.
He also revealed the company's decision to delay some of its upcoming games was due to the poor performance of "Breakpoint" and "Division 2." The company announced its plans to postpone the release of three major titles, "Watch Dogs Legion," "Gods & Monsters," and "Rainbow Six Quarantine," in addition to two unannounced games, one of which could quite possibly be the next "Assassin's Creed" title.
Although the publisher might take a financial hit by delaying so many of its titles to the next fiscal year, Ubisoft wants to focus on quality and the extra time in development will hopefully allow the games to become more polished, like the titles the company used to be known for.
