We discussed briefly if that was the appeal of GRC and Brenda responded that there are different appeals for playing a game for different players. She said that there might be a gamer out there who just wants to play through the main ten missions and defeat the bad guy at the end, a gamer who might want his sniper to have unbelievable accuracy, and maybe even a gamer who might just want to have the best-looking base camp possible.
Ghost Recon Future Soldier unlocks the squad from its single-player game in GRC and GRC has item unlocks, such as weapon skins, for GRFS. Brenda described the unlockable soldiers as initial “Armageddon machines” capable of “mowing down levels” and that she had to figure out if she needed to configure the difficulty of the missions to accommodate them in GRC. Brenda did note that letting the soldiers be “Armageddon machines” on a lower-level mission is a “hell of a lot of fun,” though. Whether or not GRC will eventually offer more content for GRFS (or vice versa) is up to Ubisoft.
I asked Brenda what she thought about a “synergy” between console, Facebook, and handheld games — that maybe one day, each version of a game could unlock content in the others. She hopes that it might be possible. She then gave an example of how a core gamer could ask a friend who was more interested in social games to take his/her UPlay account information and unlock content that he/she couldn’t otherwise access unless he/she played the social game. She said that she thinks that the idea of “community gaming” is a good one.
On the subject of possibly bringing GRC to PlayStation Network or PlayStation Vita, she told me that the decision is up to Ubisoft, but also that she is always open to work on Ghost Recon games if Ubisoft would ask her to do so.
Brenda did give me some insight into what’s next for GRC. She’s working on new missions and more armor, helmets, guns, and scarves are coming. Also, PvP functionality is coming to the game as well. She cautioned against looking too far into the constantly changing future of social games in regards to longer term plans for the game, but did say that both Loot Drop and Ubisoft are very dedicated to making sure that GRC is a success and that she’ll be focused on making sure that GRC is as great a game as she can make it.
To view screenshots of the game, click on the Media Gallery below:
On behalf of PSLS and its readers, I’d like to thank Brenda and Ubisoft’s Raha Bouda very much for their time. Ghost Recon Commander is currently available on Facebook and Ghost Recon Future Soldier is available wherever console video games are sold.
