It looks like the next Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon title is set to be one of Ubisoft’s next big releases.
The original Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon, released in 2001 to Windows, Mac OS, Xbox, PlayStation 2, and GameCube, was part of the initial wave of tactical shooters that defined the conventions of the genre. Unfortunately, if you jump to more recent years, both Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands from 2017 and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint from 2019 received mixed critical reception and were not particularly successful. They even did some reputational damage to the franchise when they briefly added NFTs to the game, only to be chastised to remove it afterwards. It has been over three years since they actively supported any Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon games.
As reported by Insider Gaming, Ubisoft has been quietly working on a new Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon game, with their initial report dating from March 2024. They claim that it will be a first-person military shooter set in a fictional conflict called the Naiman war. They also compared some footage of the WIP that they got their hands on to the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare games, as well as Void Interactive’s Ready or Not.
Today they claim that this new game, codenamed Ovr, is entering its internal alpha in Fall 2025, and will be releasing sometime in 2026. They expect the release date to come approximately one year after the alpha, which reflects the amount of time needed to put in the final polish before it becomes ready to release. If Insider Gaming’s sources are accurate, it will also mean that sometime this year, Ubisoft will start bringing in outside players, including the requisite content creators, to join in on those alpha playtests as well.
This likely was coincidental, but this timeframe seems to line up with when Ubisoft made their decision to end development on XDefiant, their take on a free-to-play arena shooter. The game finally shut off its servers last month, with its former director Mark Rubin announcing his retirement from the video game industry the following day. It could certainly paint a complete picture, with Ubisoft deciding to double down on their investment on Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege X, but also putting their resources and attention into the next Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon.
With a Battlefield reboot also in the wings, it certainly seems that the tactical shooter space is set to become its own battlefield, for DAUs and their wallets. While this was definitely disappointing for XDefiant fans, the currently beleaguered Ubisoft made choices that they believe are more likely to yield success. We’ll see if this new game lives up to the legacy of the Ghosts.
