The appeal of making a game as realistic as possible has always been present in the gaming community. Whether it be developers or players, everyone loves games that immerse them in a world of their own. However, too much realism can often make a game needlessly confusing. So, Ghost Recon Breakpoint decided to release a game mode instead of the entire game.
The immersive mode in Ghost Recon Breakpoint is fine-tuned to offer a realistic experience that disables foreign handicaps like the HUD and full health regen. You will have to navigate your progression through a mode with a scarcity of resources along with a rigorously punishing system and environment.
While there are a total of three modes to choose from, the Immersive still stands on top when it comes to raw difficulty. You’d have to make use of the little help you get while competing with/against fellow players. With that being said, let’s take a look at what the Immersive Mode has to offer.
Features In Ghost Recon Breakpoint: Immersive Mode
The Immersive mode is intended to be realistic – no doubt about that. However, it focuses more on the immersion aspect. Therefore, you can expect the difficulty to be significantly higher, but you won’t be getting the same treatment as an Escape From Tarkov player.
Having said that, let’s count down the differences between Regular and Immersive modes:
Lack Of Gear Levels
The Gear level is the prime metric that acts as a leveling system that determines your current strength. A lack of this metric means that you won’t be able to gauge your enemy’s strength compared to yours.
Since everything will be reliant on judgment, certain battles can become a gamble. Therefore, we recommend you rely on your accumulated game knowledge in order to make informed decisions rather than going all hilly billy when it comes to item selection.
Plus, you could also just aim for headshots instead. But while that feat is achievable, keeping it up for long periods with such accuracy is nothing more than a pipe dream.
Realism In Looting
Unlike the regular mode, the bullets you use, and the layout you don – everything will be calculated realistically. Therefore, if an enemy has 4 bullets remaining in his/her magazine, then you will be getting the same amount when you pick the weapon up.
Consequently, the pick-up animation is made to be more realistic. While this means that the pick-up time will be greater than usual, you will do just fine, given that you clear the area before looting.
Limited Primary Weapons
A player’s pocket space is limited. Therefore, you will only be able to take 1 or 2 primary weapons with you. So be sure to make them count since a lesser weapon choice roughly translates to having lesser range switching options.
In simpler terms, you won’t be able to materialize a shotgun from thin air if it’s not present in your loadout. So, good luck trying to fight in close quarters with an AR. Thus, it’s extremely important to spec according to the nature of your playstyle.
Plus, a limitation on primary weapons means your secondary ones will be used much more than often, so you need to have your pistol game up at all times.
Bullet Tracking
Each and every bullet coming out of your guns will be counted, and the ammo present in your magazine will be lost whenever you reload (change magazines). Therefore, you need to be efficient in your bullet usage since players generally prefer to reload even if the magazine is 29/30.
However, such reloads are attached with a hefty price tag in this mode. Therefore, you’d have to mentally count the number of fired bullets in order to prevent wastage. Just make sure to have enough bullets to take an enemy down in your magazine and leave the rest to fate.
Realistic Stamina Levels
The consumed stamina can now be adjusted according to your exertion. For example, if you’re carrying a heavy sniper along with heavy goodies, your stamina will naturally deplete faster.
On the contrary, if you’re walking at the speed of a tortoise while being buck naked, you can bet the stamina bar won’t go down throughout the match. Needless to say, the game encourages you only to carry what you need since any excess weight can prove to be unnecessary baggage.
Injury Risk
Since everything is de-automated, your character will have a decent chance of getting injured. While this only occurs with live bullets, the injured status can still be a pain to deal with.
You can think of it as this massive debuff that hinders your movement along with your ability and stamina. This essentially means that it’ll be considerably more difficult to react to incoming enemies.
Therefore, it’s best to grab cover to heal yourself before heading into the fray again. Plus, you still have a base health regen – so it’s only a matter of time before you heal back to full – even without any relevant items.
Customizable Health Regen
This is an adjustable option that allows you to limit your health regen to a certain degree. It works similarly to the stamina level but is much more potent since it can essentially decide your in-game survivability.
It’s generally best to have it at maximum, but you can also try to challenge yourself. While we don’t recommend that for beginners, it can still be a great way of improving the game. Consequently, you can also remove the meter altogether if you want to make the experience as tough as possible.
HUD Settings
Your HUD would become a bit more useless – with all the information being much more concise than usual. Luckily, you will be getting basic info about yourself and your surroundings, so it’s not gonna be the end of the world.
With that said, here’s what will change:
- Mini Map: The map’s size will be reduced and will have lesser info than usual. However, it’s still enough to get a basic grasp of your surroundings.
- Loot Notification: You will be receiving the relevant notifications for loot. However, they will be on a much smaller scale.
- Little To No 3D Loot: You will be getting 3D loot, albeit in a much lesser quantity than usual.
What’s The Most Immersive Way Of Playing The Mode?
Despite the Ghost Recon Breakpoint dev team doing their best to please everyone, the Immersive mode still lacks the “tactical experience” that Ubisoft promised. Arguably, you could move around the location to find more guys to kill, but it won’t be that good of a feeling since they don’t do much to retaliate.
While open-world Ubisoft games often tend to come with this issue, you can only take the control in your hands to satiate your curiosity/desire. Having said that, here are the most immersive ways of playing the Immersive mode as realistically as possible:
Step #1: Turn Off HUD Elements
HUD elements tend to provide a statistical overview of yourself. It shows everything from the number of bullets remaining to the amount of water present in your bottle. You don’t need that hindering you from going commando.
Therefore, the only correct decision here is to disable it for the betterment of humanity. While you might feel a bit naked without it, the game will become almost twice as immersive compared to before.
Step #2: Turn Off Multiplayer
If you’re turning off any form of help or assistance, it’s better to say goodbye to your online friends/randoms as well. Simply head to the settings in order to turn multiplayer off, and you’re good to go!
The main benefit of this kind of approach is that you can enjoy the game for what it’s worth. While you will be missing out on the quality time one spends with his/her friends, the game’s immersion rate will increase significantly.
Step #3: Set All Difficulties To Max
Your main goal is to explore and experience the realities of the world. While a video game is not the best place to do that, you’d still want to gain as much as you can from it possible. Therefore, we recommend you pull all stops from the breaks in order to go full throttle on the immersion meter.
However, it’s better for newbies to wear seatbelts since there’s no point in the if you die too early. Thus, you need to set the difficulties according to your experience and skill level. Simply cranking them up won’t do much good for you.
Immersive Vs Regular Mode: Which One Is Better?
There’s no clear answer to this question as the Immersive mode and the Regular mode target different demographics. The players that dislike gated combat can play the Immersive mode to their heart’s content, whereas the players that are just in it for the gameplay should stick to the Regular mode.
Since you will be losing out on unnecessary stats, the combat will feel much harder and more realistic. Therefore, it mostly boils down to your perspective of the game. If you’re plenty fine with the current difficulty, then we’d suggest you stay away from the Immersive mode.
It’s supposed to target high-level players as an audience. Since you have an insane amount of customizable options to cycle through in the settings, the game will always feel ever-changing in the grand scheme.
Consequently, if you’re a grind enthusiast, then you’d need a metric that can calculate your game progression. There’s no point if you can’t identify a good weapon from a bad one. Therefore, you’d need to have all the metrics you can get in the regular mode to make the game enjoyable for yourself.
Is Immersive Mode Worth Playing?
Frankly put, one of the only reasons a player plays the immersive mode is to be unbound by the in-game restrictions. You don’t want unnecessary stats nagging at you for making a bad decision.
In Immersive Mode, you can carry your favorite gun from the start to the end of the game without having any repercussions. Since everything is a level harder than usual, you’d still get punished way more often than usual. Everything can become a grind – especially when you don’t have the ability to tailor your playstyle.
Current Issues With The Immersive Mode
Despite the mode being targeted at hardcore gamers, it suffers from some really annoying issues that make it unplayable otherwise. The game mode is hard, no doubt about it, but it doesn’t have to be a torture chamber as well.
With that being said, here are the current underlying issues with the Immersive mode in Tom Clancy’s Ghost Reckon Breakpoint:
Drones
Despite players having strict tracking on their ammo and gun counts, the drones can be as annoying as they want. The ammo in them is unlimited. Therefore, you need to take them down as soon as possible since a fight of attrition will only make it harder for you.
However, even that’s hard because their flight patterns are erratic to the point where it becomes very difficult to calculate an outcome where they can be taken down easily.
Gear Level
The immersive mode promised to get rid of the Gear Levels once and for all. However, you need it to participate in PvP and raids. Therefore, you won’t be able to survive playing Immersive mode alone as it won’t give any benefits to your gear level.
Thus, online play becomes a bit constricted. We recommend you clear the single player to the point where the gear level doesn’t matter before getting on board with the Immersive mode.
Luckily, there isn’t much that needs to be changed on a general level. From here onwards, it’s more about a player’s personal choice than an issue with the game in general.
Takeaway
All in all, the Immersive mode is a unique take on how you play Ghost Recon Breakpoint. With the environment staying the same, players can do much more than before.
While the controlled vs. uncontrolled gameplay debate is rather dependent on the play preferences, you’d be sure to do well as long as you have the basics down.