Ubisoft delays Ghost Recon Frontline closed beta, new date yet to be announced

The upcoming closed beta test for Ghost Recon Frontline has been delayed indefinitely, Ubisoft announced today.

Ghost Recon Frontline was announced a few weeks ago, and the initial reaction of the franchise's fans hasn't been positive, as a number of players saw this announcement as yet another trend-chaser project from Ubisoft.

Ghost Recon Frontline is a free-to-play "massive PVP shooter" which will have more than 100 players fighting on a huge map called Drakemoor Island, where a win condition is to obtain and extract intel.

The game significantly diverges from the usual Ghost Recon single-player formula, something Ubisoft previously tried in 2014 with Ghost Recon Phantoms, a now-defunct multiplayer-only free-to-play game, which also hasn't been received well by the fans of the series.

And it seems that the initial backlash has been taken seriously by Ubisoft, as the planned closed beta, which was supposed to start this week, has been postponed.

Ghost Recon Frontline beta delayed

Ubisoft Bucharest, the second largest Ubisoft studio, which is in charge of Frontline's development, announced on 13th October that they have decided to postpone the closed beta test for Ghost Recon Frontline.

"The development team is dedicated to creating the best experience possible," reads the announcement. "Thank you for your ongoing support."

While the short "important message" tweet didn't share any particular reasons behind the delay, it is implied that the negative reaction from fans has influenced this decision to some degree.

At the time of writing, the announcement video for the game has around 18,000 dislikes and only around 4,000 likes, representing a strong message from fans on what they think about the direction Ubisoft is taking with the Ghost Recon series.

It seems that Ubisoft has failed to properly communicate about the game's genre, as many who saw the trailer initially thought that this is just another battle royale game due to its enormous map and matches with 100+ players and four-man squads.

And while it does share some resemblance with battle royale games, the game is more similar to Hunt Showdown or Escape from Tarkov than Warzone or Apex Legends.

The developers didn't share details about the new date for the closed beta, only that they will announce the new date "as soon as we can." And while they claim that the studio is committed to making a great Ghost Recon game, there's a lot of caution among fans, as recent similar games from Ubisoft like Hyper Scape and Tom Clancy’s XDefiant do not instil confidence in fans.

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Featured image courtesy of Ubisoft.