Ubisoft Licenses Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

Tom Clancy and Ubisoft have been working together on games for quite some time now, and it doesn't look like there is an end in sight for their collaboration. Besides the very hyped, upcoming Splinter Cell: Conviction, the studio has plans to expand another TC franchise. Another trademark filing was spotted by Superannuation, and this one unveils another possible addition to the Ghost Recon series. If the last installment in the series, Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2, already pushed the limits of military technology, it looks like the next thing on Ubisoft's mind is even beyond army prototypes.

"Ghost Recon: Future Soldier" is the trademark filed by the company and it looks like maybe, just maybe, someone is trying to stay ahead of the "modern warfare" cultural movement started by Call of Duty and now picked up by the upcoming Medal of Honor. While the genre is basically the same first-person shooter, the core principle of the games is very different. If Call of Duty is pretty much a run-and-gun game, Ghost Recon was always more of a slowly-crawl-and-aim, tactical FPS.

But the truly interesting thing about this trademark filing is that it pretty much means that there are not one but two Ghost Recon games on the way. Ghost Recon: Predator has already been revealed as an existing project, so fans of the series can only rejoice at the possibility that the two-year-long dead franchise will be vigorously reanimated. But, of course, these are simple trademark inquisitions, so it could also mean that either Ubisoft has a hard time deciding what to call its game and is paranoid about someone else stealing the name, or there could be an ever grimmer option.

The fact that the name has been licensed doesn't mean that there will definitely be a title attached to it. There have been plenty of cases where projects have gotten lost along the way, some closer than others to finalization. But, as far as coexistence between the two titles goes, it's a definite possibility. Predator could easily follow the state-of-the-art technology and military progress trend of the series, while Future Soldier could go all out and be a sci-fi shooter. The two could very easily work side by side.