Ghost Recon Frontline is a new and evolving free-to-play shooter for up to 102 players

Ubisoft has announced Ghost Recon Frontline, a new free-to-play class-based installment in its long-running tactical military shooter series.

Frontline will offer a variety of modes, but its "flagship" offering available at launch will be Expedition, a 102-person large-scale mode where teams of three players complete objectives before calling for extraction.

A secondary mode, Control, will offer a 9v9 points-based affair, though details on this are more sketchy. In Frontline's reveal, during tonight's Ghost Recon 20th Anniversary livestream, Ubisoft vaguely mentioned "a traditional arena shooter" offering as well as other additional modes which would launch within Frontline, season by season.

While some of the gameplay will be familiar to Ghost Recon fans, and Ubisoft promised Frontline would eventually boast a variety of modes with "something for everyone", early reaction to the reveal from the stream's hardcore fan audience has been mixed.

It hasn't helped that Ubisoft's announcement for Frontline focuses heavily on details of its Expedition mode, or that the game's press release omits detail on other offerings apart from a note that "additional modes will also be available at launch".

Consequently, coverage of the game's reveal has largely been focused on Expedition mode's battle royale-like qualities. In its own press release, Ubisoft describes Expedition as a "new take on the battle royale genre" with no converging circle.

But, speaking in a GamesRadar interview published alongside the announcement, Frontline's brand director Stefan Marinescu said the game was actually "different in many ways".

"Battle royale is a genre. It's not like we're very far away from it, but we are different in many ways," Marinescu said. "We are free to play, indeed, but we are a tactical, action, massive PvP shooter, that's what we want to call it.

"It's our own, very personal take on this massive PvP shooting scene that's done in the Ghost Recon universe. We always wanted to have something different. We didn't want to come to the market with the same thing as everyone else."

Elsewhere, fans have compared Expedition mode's gameplay to Escape from Tarkov.

Ghost Recon Frontline is in development for PC, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S, plus Amazon Luna and Google Stadia.

There's no detail on when the game will arrive, other than a statement from Ubisoft during its livestream that Frontline was still "early" in development.

A technical test for PC players in Europe to play Expedition mode will take place starting next week, on 14th October, with sign-ups available now.