Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon turns 25 on November 13, and Ubisoft got the celebration started early with a wave of announcements during an anniversary livestream. The centerpiece is a major update to 2017's Ghost Recon Wildlands, which adds 4K/60fps support on current-gen consoles, improved lighting, shadows and distance rendering, and new customization options covering enemy behavior, time of day, weather and damage values. The update also restores previously time-limited content, including the Predator crossover.
Alongside the technical overhaul, Wildlands received a free story expansion called Last Rites, which sends the four-person Ghost Squad back to Bolivia to hunt La Llorona, leader of a violent cult called Los Penitentes operating amid the country's swamps and forests. The expansion consists of six missions and pits the squad against both the cult and the returning UNIDAD faction. Reviewing the update, GamesRadar+ praised the new antagonist and the tactical, stealth-driven gameplay reminiscent of Metal Gear Solid 5, though it noted the story feels rushed given only six missions, and that the seven-plus-year-old game still shows technical rough edges, including AI and animation bugs. Ghost Recon Breakpoint, the 2019 follow-up to Wildlands, is not receiving a comparable visual and content upgrade, though Breakpoint players will get a free 25th-anniversary bundle in September.
As part of the celebration, Wildlands and Breakpoint are free to play on Ubisoft Connect from August 6 through August 10, and both are discounted up to 95% on Steam, dropping Wildlands to $2.49 and Breakpoint to $3. Additionally, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, originally released in 2012, is available to claim for free and keep permanently on Ubisoft Connect until August 13, unlike the temporary free-play windows for Wildlands and Breakpoint. Future Soldier's campaign spans locations including Bolivia, Zambia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia and Norway.
The anniversary stream also brought the first official confirmation that a new mainline Ghost Recon game is in development. Live producer Irina-Gabriela Popa said Ubisoft has spent "the past few years" building "the next chapter of Ghost Recon," describing it as a "fun, fresh experience" that stays true to the series' tactical action, large-scale operations, military storytelling and the Ghost Unit. Ubisoft did not share a title, trailer, screenshots or release window for the project. To gather feedback ahead of future closed tests, Ubisoft launched the Ghost Recon Insider Program, which fans can join at ghostrecon.com/insider.
Reports and leaks referenced by Polygon and GamesRadar+ indicate the new game is codenamed Project OVR and has had a troubled, multi-year development. According to these reports, the project will move away from the open-world looter-shooter format of recent entries in favor of a more grounded tactical shooter experience, with Polygon adding that leaks suggest a return to a first-person perspective. GamesRadar+ noted that Ubisoft had previously signaled a larger content pipeline for major franchises including Ghost Recon in upcoming fiscal years. A new entry would end the longest gap between mainline Ghost Recon titles in the series' history, following Breakpoint's 2019 launch and the 2021 cancellation of the spinoff Ghost Recon: Frontline.
PC Gamer also noted that Wildlands' fictional premise, in which the U.S. sends the Ghosts into a Bolivia overtaken by a drug cartel, previously prompted the real Bolivian government to file a formal complaint with the French government over the game's portrayal of the country.