Ghost Recon must "balance" hardcore demand and commercial needs

Ubisoft can't cater solely to the "super hardcore" Ghost Recon fan, instead bowing to commercial reality.

"It's the balance these days, with the rising costs of development. It puts real pressure on us to make sure that we strike that balance between the creative and the commercial," Ubisoft's UK brand manager Matt Benson told OXM.

"There's always going to be that hardcore player. There's always going to be super-hardcore players and you're never going to keep them happy. They're just going to want the first Ghost Recon on first-gen Xbox, and they're going to want to be lying on the ground, camoed up, waiting 10 minutes for a guard to walk all the way back round and then pop him.

"And that's fine, but in terms of where we are right now as an industry, there are commercial needs that need to be met in order for us to make the game in the first place. That's the balance you've got to strike.

"And that doesn't mean dumbing down, although obviously the net is very quick to say 'Oh, they're dumbing down Splinter Cell, they're dumbing down this, they're dumbing that'."

The most recent release under the Ghost Recon banner was the turn-based tactics 3DS game Shadow Wars, but the next entry is Future Soldier, due on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in February.