There’s still a market for old-school Ghost Recon

There may still be a market for a “one shot / one death” Ghost Recon game, but the inherent risk involved makes it an unlikely venture. That’s the view of Yann Suquet, associate producer on the forthcoming Ghost Recon: Future Soldier.

As Ubisoft’s latest entry in the Ghost Recon series, Future Soldier blends third-person shooter elements with some of the slower, stealth-driven aspects of previous games.

It’s still a long way from the design of the earliest Ghost Recon titles, however, where a single bullet would often be enough to end the player’s life. At a recent preview event, we asked Suquet whether games like these has disappeared for good.

“I don’t think it’s done,” he replied. “I think there’s still a market for it, but it’s just a case of how much you want to invest in the game. [Development] is a business. It’s unfortunate to say… It’s about content, it’s about experience, but it’s also about cash.

“I don’t want to ruin the dreams of your reader or your audience. I think there’s a market for it, but the question is how big is it – and how much are you prepared to invest in it? I’d play it.”

The stumbling block, in Suquet’s view, is finding a publisher or developer that’s willing to commit financially to a game that might not sell:

“If you’ve got 20 million dollars lying around and you think, ‘Hey yeah, I want to make a game that’s one shot / one death,” you could make an awesome experience and hope that it will sell. You could. It might be a complete failure, but people would say, ‘It was awesome! It was a fantastic game! It was a masterpiece!

“It really does depend on the market. It’s just a case of what you want to do.”

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier will be released May 25 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. A PC version will follow at a later date.

For more on the game head over to our hot off the press hands-on impressions.