Ghost Recon Phantoms review: a true tactical shooter

I took a pretty in-depth look at Ghost Recon Phantoms back when it first came out last month, but since the game is an online-only shooter, I also promised I’d put more time into it to see what the community ends up like before giving it a full review.

Want to watch a video review instead? Check out our video review of Ghost Recon Phantoms.

Now, after several more weeks of playing the game, I think it’s only fair to give the game a proper review.

The basics

Ghost Recon Phantoms—formerly Ghost Recon Online—is a free-to-play tactical first/third-person shooter from Ubisoft Singapore. The game is pretty simple at its core: two teams start on opposite sides of a map (there are about a dozen in the game), and then they battle it out to occupy the map’s various control points. At the end of a match, the team that controlled more points in total wins.

In the game, you play as one of three different classes of soldiers, each of which have unique stats and equipment options. You can’t change classes mid-game, though, and classes level up separately, so after a little experimentation you will probably pick one that you like and stick with that for most matches. I preferred the Recon class and its temporary invisibility tech, but there is a class/equipment combination that will suit almost any playstyle.

The game’s controls are pretty straightforward; if you’ve played a PC shooter then you’ve done this before. In Phantoms, you move around in the third-person, but the game switches to the first-person whenever you’re aiming down the sights. Aiming down the sights gives you a critical hit bonus, and taking cover in various positions also offers you stat bonuses, so positioning is hugely important in the game. Someone camping behind a nice piece of cover and looking down their sights is pretty much always going to beat somebody charging, Rambo-style, out in the open.

Players earn points for their contributions to the team (kills, objective captures, etc.), but these affect only your end-of-game rewards in XP and AC (one of the game’s two virtual currencies). Your victory or loss wil be determined solely by who captures more control points, so teamwork is absolutely vital. Teams that know the map’s layout well will have a distinct advantage, and teams with a variety of classes will do even better, as they’ll be well-equipped to handle a variety of situations.

Pay-to-win?