A Ghost Recon film was already an intriguing prospect but now there are even more reasons to get excited for it.
Ubisoft has confirmed that not only will Ghost Recon Alpha, the twenty five minute live action movie, be a prequel to the upcoming Ghost Recon Future Soldier game but it will also have two interesting hooks for players. Somewhere in the movie is a code that will unlock exclusive weapons for use in Future Soldier.
Furthermore the setting for the climactic battle in the movie, an open industrial area in an eastern European country, will be a multiplayer map in the game.
The news was revealed by Ubisoft’s IP development director Adrian Lacey and Future Soldier creative director Jean-Marc Geffrey at a screening for press and community members at BAFTA headquarters this past week. Exact details such as when the code shows up and what form it takes were left vague as presumably they didn’t want the viewers in attendance to be leaking it out online already, but the multiplayer map will ship with the game.
Alpha’s directors Francois Alaux and Herve de Crecy were also in attendance and the two groups discussed the processes behind creating the game and movie in tandem. They spoke at length about striving for the authenticity that the Tom Clancy franchise has always demanded, from hiring former U.S. marines for the motion capture to accessing real military documents.
One amusing fact they revealed was that during their perusal of US military documents (non-classified ones, of course) they found indications that the country had shown interest in researching and developing technology from fictional sources, specifically the cloaking technology seen in the Predator films and the rail gun weapon from the Quake video games.
I can report that Alpha itself was surprisingly good. Story-wise it was straightforward, utilising the typical high-stakes terrorism plot, but the action was involving and well shot. It was impressive how authentic it was to the games, prominently displaying the drone, cloaking technology and the use of that distinct neon blue glow that gamers have grown used to since the first Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter.
Ubisoft is regarding Alpha as the prototype for future productions under its Ubisoft Motion Pictures brand. The Paris-based company has previously stated that they intend to turn several of their video game franchises into feature films.
At the time of writing Ghost Recon Alpha has no firm release date nor distribution plans announced for Europe and the UK. However, Ubisoft has told Strategy Informer that it will launch sometime before Future Soldier does in late May and that ”exciting” things were in the works regarding its distribution.
Interestingly, several online retailers including Amazon.com have it listed for pre-order on Blu-Ray and DVD.
Keep watching Strategy Informer for upcoming announcements regarding Alpha, Future Soldier and those mysterious unlockable weapons.
