Fans of tactical shooter games rejoice; the newest game in Tom Clancy and Ubisoft’s “Ghost Recon” series is here.

The series allows players to take a slower, more thought-out approach to battles, and it has garnered praise and attention from fans since its introduction in 2001. While the games saw steady releases during the 2000s, they almost completely disappeared in recent years, except for a few less-than-stellar mobile games.

This was until the series reintroduction in 2017 with “Ghost Recon: Wildlands.” “Wildlands” took the core stealth and tactical roots of the older games and added in online multiplayer and an open world. While reactions were mixed, the general consensus seemed to be positive, and thus a direct sequel was quickly put into production.

That sequel, “Ghost Recon: Breakpoint,” released last week. Since much of the game’s prerelease marketing directed fans towards its story, I really didn’t know what to expect when it came to gameplay. For the most part, I was happily surprised.

“Ghost Recon: Breakpoint” takes place on Auroa, a private island in the South Pacific owned by Jace Skell. Skell is the founder of Skell Technology, a company that mainly makes drones for commercial use but also works as a military contractor.

When a cargo ship is sunk off the coast of Auroa, all contact with Auroa and Skell Technology is lost. This prompts the U.S. government to send in a Ghost Recon platoon in order to find out what has happened and re-establish contact with Auroa. As you can probably guess, the mission is a disaster and the player Lieutenant Colonel Anthony “Nomad” Perryman is left alone to find out what has happened in Auroa.

This story is pretty hit or miss.

While the idea of a corporation going rogue certainly isn’t a new one, the game was able to grab my attention whenever the antagonist Cole D. Walker was on screen. The former Ghost’s story was incredibly interesting to me, much in part to the outstanding performance of Jon Bernthal.

Pretty much every mission that didn’t have to do with Walker, however, was a pretty big bore. This seems to be the issue to me with most Ubisoft games: I love to play them but couldn’t care less about the story. At least “Breakpoint” made me care at least a little bit.

“Breakpoint” drops players right into the stealth action. After a short opening cut scene, players are dropped into an area surrounded by enemies and must sneak their way to safety. As a huge fan of stealth games, this got my attention immediately.

In my opinion, stealth is what the game does best.

While players are given the option to play however they want, charging into heavily armed enemy bases will usually end with a swift death. With the inclusion of a drone that can just about be used whenever you want, marking down enemies and forming a game plan before taking on missions is usually the best bet.

Planning out how you will take on certain objectives and then successfully executing your plan is a ton of fun. Even if your attempt at stealth fails horribly, as it did time after time for me, the game gives you enough options to pull yourself out of whatever trouble you get yourself into, for the most part.

The game features a leveling system that rewards players with perks and bonuses as they progress. While it isn’t the most complicated or in-depth system, it does allow players to further customize their character so they can play how they wish. In addition, the game has a large variety of different guns that players can customize with different attachments in order to get the perfect weapon for your play style.

The game also features a massive open world. While it isn’t as big as the insanely large “Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey,” it still feels expansive. Exploring Auroa was a lot of fun, with enough variation in environments to keep players on their toes as they go from mission to mission.

While the “Breakpoint” heavily encourages you to take Auroa on with a four-man team, I spent most of my time playing by myself. I am happy to report that the game is a ton of fun no matter how many players you have on your team, although it is a little easier if you have four people versus just one.

The game also features a PvP multiplayer mode called Ghost War. This mode pits players against each other in two teams of four and is a blast. I never ran into any real technical issues while playing, which was a nice surprise.

Some of my issues with “Breakpoint” are fundamental. For instance, the game requires a constant internet connection, even if you plan on playing by yourself.

This was a pretty big issue for me, as I would routinely lose connection to the servers whenever taking breaks from playing and have to restart the entire game instead of jumping back in whenever I would return. Always having to be online also means that if you are ever in a situation where you have no access to the internet, there is no way to even access the game, which really sucks.

The game also is pretty unstable graphically. Textures constantly pop in late or just look muddy and unpolished all together. This might be because of the hardware I was playing the game on, but most people don’t have an Xbox One X or a high-end PC, so I think the problem is a valid one.

This issue extends into the “uncanny valley” appearance of many of the NPC characters. While some such as Walker look great, most characters you will interact with simply look creepy. They don’t necessarily look terrible, but something just feels off.

The game can also fall into a repetitive game play loop that some players may find annoying or uninteresting. Once you figure out the core loop of “find and kill a target,” “go get this item/information” or “go rescue this guy,” things can get boring. Luckily, I enjoy this kind of mindless loop, but this isn’t the case for everyone.

Overall, “Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Breakpoint” provides a fun game play experience with a lackluster story, sub par graphics and a potentially boring game play loop. In my opinion, the core game play is enough fun to warrant sinking some time into the game, especially if you have some friends that can jump into battle with you.

If you like taking things a bit slower and being a bit more tactical with your shooters, “Breakpoint” might just be the game for you; that is, if you have a stable internet connection.

Game code provided by Ubisoft. Reviewed on an Xbox One S.

7/10