We sat down with Green Beret Emil Daubon who worked as a writer and military technical advisor on Ghost Recon Breakpoint. As former military myself, I was gutted by how realistic the narrative was in Breakpoint, including their choice of villain, and was interested to see how far that realism stretched. Speaking exclusively with Prima Games, Daubon opened up about his role in the game and what players have to look forward to.
While the main storyline was a product of many people, Emil’s focus was making sure every aspect of the game was realistic – that means NPC conversations, various archetypes represented, and enemy correlation. During my time with the game I kept laughing with my squad about how realistic it was and at times that made me a little uncomfortable. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a good thing. This aspect of our military isn’t sunshine and roses and if it makes you uncomfortable, the writers did their job well.
“They brought me on so that I could focus primarily on systemic writing, redo a lot of the stuff that was already written,” Emil told us. “That’s like sound effects, optional dialogues, information gathering system. Basically, all of the voices you hear that aren’t main characters, or non-player characters that you engage with, enemy archetypes, civilians. And the idea was to give them more texture through the systems. And then, of course, with the enemy archetypes, bring my military background and just give their voices a little bit more authenticity.”
While he said there weren’t any exact replicas of in-game situations that were copy and pasted from his own experience, he did say many of the “tight” missions were drawn from actual situations he was in as a Green Beret. Tailored for fiction, but rooted in real-life military instances. “There’s not direct references to things that actually happened, but most of what I wrote came from situations I was in,” Emil explained. “Most of what I contribute to I drew directly from my own personal experience. Whether it be how people talked, or how they behaved under certain circumstances or when they thought no one was paying attention.”
From the indecision faced with “who is my enemy,” to the banter between squadmates, Ghost Recon Breakpoint absolutely feels authentic in how it represents special operations and with this particular narrative being so rooted in “what makes a bad guy bad,” that true-to-nature development is absolutely vital for providing fans with an organic and honest experience.
Ghost Recon Breakpoint arrives on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC on October 4th.
