The new Ghost Recon game will reportedly use Unreal Engine. The purported move would mark a major technological shift for Ghost Recon, ending its years-long tradition of leveraging Ubisoft's own tech.
Since its inception in the early 2000s, the Ghost Recon franchise has mostly relied on in-house engines, except during the sixth console generation, when select builds of Ghost Recon 2 and GR Advanced Warfighter utilized modified versions of Unreal Engine 2. The PC ports of these titles still leveraged Ubisoft's own engines, as did the games that followed; in the first half of the 2010s, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier and GR Phantoms relied on the in-house LEAD Engine, whereas the 2017 Ghost Recon Wildlands used AnvilNext 2.0, originally developed for Assassin's Creed. The latest entry in the series—Ghost Recon Breakpoint, released in 2019—was also made in AnvilNext 2.0.
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PostsThe next installment in the long-running franchise is now said to be switching back to Unreal, according to a recent report by Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson. During the latest episode of the Insider Gaming Weekly Podcast, Henderson characterized the Ghost Recon Breakpoint sequel as a title that's "going to Unreal Engine." While he couldn't say why Ubisoft supposedly decided to pivot away from its own tech, the industry insider did provide one clarifying detail, stating that the upcoming title will leverage Unreal Engine 5.
New Ghost Recon May Not Use the Very Latest Unreal Engine Version
The latest iteration of Unreal Engine 5, version 5.6, was launched in June 2025. That's the platform that CD Projekt Red used to create its Witcher 4 tech demo, which made waves online back in late spring. However, unless the next Ghost Recon game is in an early stage of development right now, it likely won't utilize anything close to the latest version of the engine. Although Epic offers a migration tool and invests significant resources into backward compatibility, each new version of its popular engine introduces changes to rendering, animation systems, plugins, physics, and asset management. Major updates, like going from 5.0 to 5.1, can hence break everything from shaders and custom code to third-party tools, especially in massive projects with complex pipelines, which a AAA Ghost Recon game almost certainly is.
CloseWhy Ghost Recon's Reported Shift to Unreal Engine Matters
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot confirmed that a new Ghost Recon game is in development during a July 10 shareholder meeting. Assuming the project will indeed mark the series' return to Unreal, such a move has an obvious benefit in that it streamlines recruitment. With Epic's engine being a widely used tool, Ubisoft can have an easier time finding experienced developers and onboard them faster if its game isn't relying on proprietary tech.
From a player's perspective, the upcoming Ghost Recon game's choice of an engine shouldn't matter much. While it's not uncommon to encounter social media comments from vocal fans bemoaning things like "Unreal Engine 5 stutters," these issues tend to stem from specific developer implementations rather than some intrinsic flaw of the tool itself.
