Small Details You Missed In The Ghost Recon: Breakpoint Trailer
The announcement trailer for the hotly anticipated Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Breakpoint just dropped, and it was a doozy, especially for fans of the more recent entries of the franchise. A direct sequel to 2017's Ghost Recon: Wildlands, Breakpoint will see the protagonist of Wildlands, Nomad, go up against Cole D. Walker, a character who was just recently introduced as a hero in the Wildlands DLC, Operation Oracle. After being ambushed, Nomad and a few surviving soldiers will have to battle Walker and a splinter cell of former Ghosts (special ops soldiers) if they hope to make it back home in one piece.
Though the first trailer gave us a pretty good look at the heroes and villains of the new game, there are still a few smaller things you may have missed in between all of the action. With that in mind, here are a few things we can infer from specific moments in the trailer, as well as some fun bits of trivia and cool connections of which you may be unaware. In other words, there are plenty of reasons to get excited for the continuation of the Ghost Recon franchise; these particular ones just happened to have slipped past your defenses.
The floor is lava
The island on which Nomad and his team make their stand is shown to have multiple different terrains and environments, some of them only for a moment at a time. We see dense jungles, blizzards, and, in a very brief shot, lava flows. This suggests some kind of volcanic activity on the island, but how stable is the island, really?
We know from previews that the inclement weather will be a factor in Ghost Recon: Breakpoint's story and gameplay. In fact, Breakpoint's writer/military advisor Emil Daubon has said the weather "will kill you as sure as any bullet." This is already an enticing prospect in terms of how it will add new challenges to the story campaign, but how cool would it be to have to also have to deal with a disaster like a volcanic eruption?
The added obstacle of flowing lava, or perhaps even smoke or ash, is so intriguing. Hopefully the volcano is more than mere set decoration when the game releases. Battling an opposing army with only a handful of teammates is intimidating enough, but it looks like nature itself will be against you as well.
Possible clues in the moody soundtrack
The action in the trailer is set to a song that may sound very familiar to fans of alternative rock. It's an orchestral version of Radiohead's tune, "Karma Police," which was originally recorded for the English band's seminal album OK Computer. While the song may have simply been chosen for its cool sound (in which case, it definitely succeeds), the lyrics to the original track may hold a few hints toward the storyline of Ghost Recon: Breakpoint.
One of the few bits we hear in the trailer include the words "I lost myself," which may give us a clue toward Walker's state of mind. Something happened to set him down this dark path and to make him seemingly discard his morals. On the other hand, could the attack on Nomad and his teammates be a form of karma in itself? If so, what skeletons are in the Ghosts' collective closets? Is Walker's new evil alignment somehow the result of Nomad's actions?
Either way, the song seems to set up a major reprisal against either side of the conflict. After all, one of the repeating phrases in the original version of "Karma Police" is, "This is what you'll get when you mess with us." Now, the question is: who messed with whom first?
Wolves of a different kind
Breakpoint's main antagonist, Cole Walker, is played by actor Jon Bernthal, who may be best known for his role as Frank Castle/The Punisher on Netflix's Daredevil and his own spin-off series. However, before those shows, he was primarily known for playing a part in another comic book adaptation, starring as Shane in AMC's The Walking Dead. In Breakpoint, Walker is the leader of the rogue group of Ghosts, who are now calling themselves the Wolves. It's worth noting that the Wolves are reminiscent of an element of the Walking Dead franchise.
Spoilers ahead for The Walking Dead television series.
Long after Shane turned on the show's heroes and was killed off (and zombified and killed off again), the protagonists ran afoul of a violent survivalist group who call themselves — you guessed it — the Wolves. Unlike the highly-trained elite soldiers of Breakpoint, these Wolves were a roving gang of scavengers who took what they wanted and killed anyone in their way, sometimes for sport. Over the course of their tenure in the television series, the Wolves are responsible for several ambushes on the civilized settlements inhabited by much of the show's main cast, which resulted in the deaths of several recurring characters.
While this is most likely a coincidence in terms of the similarly named factions, it's still an interesting parallel to draw. In his roles as an antagonist, Bernthal has traded one world full of Wolves for another.
The Wolves carry out a massacre
One of the lingering questions from the trailer comes from the battered survivors with whom Nomad teams up against Walker and Company. It looks as though Nomad has to make his way to these new Ghosts, who seem to have set up a makeshift camp for themselves in the forest. How did they get there? Does Nomad have a history with this group like the one he had with his fallen teammates?
These questions may be answered by a sequence in which Walker leads his Wolves in an assault against an unnamed facility. It appears to be a surprise attack, because the people inside this compound appear to be slaughtered rather quickly. This would certainly account for the reduced numbers on the island who are on Nomad's side. Maybe it's even this massacre that brings Nomad and his team to the island in the first place.
Whenever this attack actually takes place within the narrative of the game, it's a clear indicator of Walker's and the Wolves' abilities, as well as how much of a threat they pose to the ragtag group left behind. If the Wolves can make such short work of an entire compound of soldiers, what hope do Nomad and his cohorts have? These quick moments of violence in the trailer raise a lot more questions about just how far Walker is willing to take his vendetta.
Blink and you've lost them
"When you take the life of my brothers ... I will burn your world to the ground." That's the promise Nomad makes to Cole Walker in the final moments of Breakpoint's trailer. Just which brothers is he referring to? Well, it's easy to think this ominous warning is referring to the nameless people killed by the Wolves in their assault on the compound.
However, you may have missed a few familiar (but doomed) faces at the very beginning of the trailer. Namely, Weaver, Holt, and Midas, Nomad's squad teammates from Ghost Recon: Wildlands. Weaver takes a bullet to the back, Holt is last seen attempting to hide behind a tree as multiple enemies unload their weapons toward him, and Midas is in a fiery helicopter crash. Though Nomad makes it out of the wreckage, it appears that Midas wasn't so lucky, as Nomad watches in terror as Walker puts a bullet in what appears to be an already-incapacitated Midas.
It's easy to miss the significance of these characters, as each are only onscreen for a brief second at best. Once you realize who they are, however, their tragic and brutal deaths make the battle between Walker and Nomad more personal than it would seem at first glance.
They're watching
If a few moments in the trailer are to be believed, players are going to have an extra difficult time navigating Nomad away from the Wolves. These guys have a pack of drones on their side, one of which is briefly seen in the trailer being remote-controlled by Cole Walker himself. While it's expected that the drones will be an enemy type in the game, it's exciting to speculate on exactly how they'll be implemented by the wolves.
In the trailer, we see Nomad scrambling for cover when he realizes a drone has found him. If this danger extends beyond the cinematics and into actual gameplay, it could necessitate learning more clever uses for the Ghost Recon series' stealth mechanics. Imagine sneaking past a whole group of enemies, only to be ousted from your hiding spot by a drone that alerts the Wolves to your presence.
Hopefully this is an obstacle that is present in the story campaign. It could add a whole new layer to the game's combat, similar to the UAV Drones used by the Ghosts in previous games, only these definitely aren't on your side. The idea that the enemy has something on their side that can tag your position is altogether terrifying, but likely exhilarating for players who are looking for this game to raise the stakes.
Walker gets his hands dirty (and that's terrifying)
In stark contrast to so many other lead bad guys in video games, Walker doesn't seem to have a problem with getting into the thick of things with the rest of his team. Whether he's strangling a prisoner with a length of rope, trudging through the snow with a group of soldiers, or personally directing a drone chasing Nomad, Walker is constantly seen on the ground with the rest of his Wolves.
It's easy to miss this at first glance, but when you think about how involved Walker is in each scenario, you can't help but be enticed by the gameplay possibilities. It will be interesting to see if this trait of Walker's carries into the rest of the game, rather than simply in the cutscenes. Walker would be much more compelling as a constant physical threat, rather than someone twiddling his thumbs back in the Wolves' base of operations, just waiting for Nomad to show up for the inevitable final boss battle. Let's hope that's the case, because it would certainly make the conflict between the two factions much more personal.
All in all, Cole Walker is looking to be possibly the most interesting part of the new game. The questions of what made him into the apparent monster that he is today will likely drive Breakpoint's narrative to new heights within the franchise.