Like Facebook with machine-guns instead of annoying people.
April 5, 2012 by
Mitch Dyer
When the
Ghost Recon: Future Soldier beta launches
later this month, participants will be able to take part in a limited version of Ubisoft's upcoming Ghost Recon Network. Accessible via the Network website or iOS/Android app, the social network functions much like Battlelog or Elite. Ubisoft's bringing some additional interesting features to encourage and engage the Ghost Recon audience.
The Network feature plays into the release of Future Soldier, as it's Ubi's biggest Ghost property this year, but it also embraces additional Tom Clancy games to a certain degree. Long-time fans will benefit the most from the rewarding online system, indeed.
Hey, that's you!
Splinter Cell: Conviction and Rainbow Six: Vegas vets can expect to earn exclusive related weaponry or camo skins for use in Future Soldier's adversarial multiplayer. In addition, Network will also benefit players of the upcoming Ghost Recon: Commander
Facebook game and the
free-to-play PC shooter Ghost Recon: Online, as well as viewers of the Ghost Recon: Alpha short film. Having a long list of Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter Achievements unlocked certainly wouldn't hurt, too. The bigger your Tom Clancy history, the better.
Network's thorough stat-tracking, heat maps, and character profiles bring extensive detail to the table for Squads, Future Soldier's clan equivalent. Heat maps display not only the most populated movement locations in each map, but can be broken down by which classes kill or die in specific spaces in various multiplayer modes.
Highlights of your career, such as earned items, show up in other players' Ghost Feed, an automated list where friends can leave comments. The better and more you play, the more detailed your Ghost Dossier becomes; the cumulative summary of your "tour of duty" contributes to each player's overall rank within the Network.
The Ghost Dossier is all about your accomplishments out there.
The purpose of Network isn't just to show, but to enable. The upcoming mobile app allows players to browse created weapons and customize their own, and then sync it to their preferred Future Soldier class. Players can also receive text-message tasks, such as competitive kill-based challenges friends, to earn additional experience points.
IGN's early look at the Network website showed a lot of familiar aspects, but Ubisoft's expansion of and dedication to Ghost Recon proves the publisher is positioning it as a huge release this year.
Look for the mobile app, website, and a basic representation of Ghost Recon Network's features to open up later in April.
Mitch Dyer is an Associate Editor for IGN's Xbox 360 team. He's also quite Canadian. Read his ramblings on Twitter and follow him on IGN.
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