‘Ghost Recon Breakpoint’ won’t receive any more updates

Ubisoft says Ghost Recon Breakpoint will no longer receive content updates, leaving the tactical shooter essentially frozen in time. In the last few months, the developers added a mode called Operation Motherland and a bunch of items. In all, Ubisoft released 11 content updates for Breakpoint. The publisher will keep the servers for both that game and its predecessor Ghost Recon Wildlands online for the foreseeable future.

Breakpoint wasn’t well received when it was released in October 2019. Ubisoft swiftly went into damage control mode to resolve some of the bugs and stability issues in the weeks after release. However, the game’s perhaps best known these days for being home to Ubisoft’s first rollout of NFTs (non-fungible tokens).

In December, the publisher announced plans to add NFTs (though it calls them “Digits”) to its games through the Quartz platform. The news didn’t go over well with players or employees, many of whom cited concerns about the environmental impact of NFTs and accused Ubisoft of trying to milk more money from consumers.

Breakpoint was the first target of the NFT project. Ubisoft gave away Digits to players, including gun skins with small, barely noticeable serial numbers. Players didn’t exactly flock to buy them on secondary markets, though. An Ubisoft executive claimed in January that players could benefit from having a secondary market for in-game items, “but they don’t get it for now.”

“Thank you to all Ghost Recon Breakpoint players who claimed their first Digits,” a message on the Quartz site reads. “You own a piece of the game and have left your mark in its history. As the last Digit for Ghost Recon Breakpoint was released on 3/17/2022, stay tuned for more updates with features to the platform and future drops coming with other games!”

Bringing development on Breakpoint to an end at this point isn’t a massive surprise. It wasn’t exactly designed to last as a live service title for many years, and Ubisoft is well-known for churning out sequels to its core franchises. 

Still, the move will severely diminish the perceived value of Breakpoint‘s NFTs. It’s unlikely that interest in Breakpoint will increase in the future, which will make it more difficult for Digits owners to sell them. Holders of the NFT items won’t be able to transfer them to other titles either, leaving them in possession of in-game goods with little real-world value.

Even though Breakpoint is on life support, the Ghost Recon brand isn’t going away anytime soon. In October, Ubisoft announced a free-to-play battle royale title called Ghost Recon Frontline.