Skip to main content

‘Tom Clancy’s ShadowBreak’ brings tactical first-person shooting to mobile devices

Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy franchise has typically been associated with powerful PCs and traditional consoles, but the publisher has announced a new game that will arrive exclusively to mobile devices. Tom Clancy’s ShadowBreak mixes together the first-person shooting of Hitman: Sniper with a healthy dose of strategy.

ShadowBreak is structured into 3-minute matches, with players positioning and deploying troops to attack the enemy indirectly while simultaneously moving their character into position to snipe soldiers on the ground — as well as take out the enemy’s snipers. The game will feature a competitive multiplayer mode, which should give way to tense, white-knuckle (or fingertip) matches like those we’ve seen from the Sniper Elite series.

More : ‘Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands’ review

Though it combines elements of both the first-person shooter and real-time strategy genres, Ubisoft wants ShadowBreak to still be enjoyable for those who aren’t particularly skilled in one or the other of them.

“If you’re a great marksman with an inferior troop loadout, you’re still going to have a strong avenue to victory,” said creative director A.J. Morales. “If you’re not as strong in your shooter prowess, but have superior troops and strategy, you’ve still got a great shot at the win.”

Each player selects “up to four” units to take with them in a match, and both their personal appearance and equipment loadout are fully customizable. Weapons can be augmented with additional items, which are acquired through the ever-popular “reward crates” seen in games like Overwatch. Ubisoft will continue to support the game with additional weapons, locations, and modes after its launch.

Tom Clancy’s ShadowBreak is the latest game to use the famous author’s name following the release of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands in March and Tom Clancy’s The Division in 2016. The game launches later this year on iOS and Android devices. It had a “soft launch” on Wednesday in Canada, as well.

Editors' Recommendations

Gabe Gurwin
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…
Volgarr the Viking 2 will take you back to your Ghosts ‘n Goblins days
A viking slashes a tree in Volgarr the Viking 2.

Developer Digital Eclipse is working on a surprising project: Volgarr the Viking 2. The 2D retro sequel will launch on August 6 for PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

The news is an out of left field reveal. The first Volgarr the Viking game released in 2013 and was made as an ode to 1080s classics like Ghosts 'n Goblins. Despite being a small release, it sold over 1 million copies over the past decade. As revealed during today's Guerrilla Collective stream, the series is coming back with a new sequel by Digital Eclipse, the team behind this year's Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story.

Read more
3 Days of Play PS Plus games to try this weekend (June 7-9)
Key art for Streets of Rage 4.

June 2024 is shaping up to be a pretty great month for PlayStation players. Not only are we coming off an entertaining State of Play showcase, but a new Days of Play initiative surrounding all the video game showcases this month is bringing a lot of new PS Plus additions with it. Many of those games hit PS Plus this week, and three in particular stand out to us.

For owners of Sony's oft-neglected PlayStation VR2, the first game is one of its rare exclusives that take full advantage of the headset's eye-tracking by seeing how often players blink. The next is a new PS Plus Essential game that's a revival of Sega's classic beat-'em-up series for the modern gaming era. Finally, the last title is an atmospheric and eerie fishing game that should entice fans of Lovecraftian horror.
Before Your Eyes

Read more
3 first-party Xbox Game Pass games to try this weekend (June 7-9)
Gears 5 Kait Hero Close Up

Microsoft will hold an Xbox Games Showcase and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Direct. this Sunday. These shows will provide a much better idea of what to expect from Xbox over the course of the next year or two. That's really needed right now, as Microsoft has struggled to keep online discussions around Xbox positive as it went multiplatform with some games, laid off thousands of developers, and outright shut down the developers of Hi-Fi Rush and Redfall. Based on leaks and my personal expectations for the showcase, there are three games you can play on Xbox Game Pass this weekend to prepare for the event.

The first is the latest first-person shooter in a long-running series by id Software that might be getting a medieval-set spinoff. After that, we have the fifth entry in a sci-fi Xbox series that still looks fantastic on Xbox Series X/S even though it came out in 2019. Finally, you can prepare for Avowed with the latest RPG from Obsidian Entertainment, a satirical sci-fi game where player choice is critical.
Doom Eternal

Read more