Ghost Recon: Future Soldier—the Real Military Tech Behind the Game

The newest game in the Tom Clancy Ghost Recon series?Ghost Recon: Future Soldier?comes out next spring, but is set two decades in the future. The game designers studied the newest weapons and weapons research at work in the real U.S. military for inspiration for arming their Special Forces soldiers of the future. Here's what you can do in Future Soldier, and how close today's real military tech is to the game's. By John Brandon

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Any first-person shooter has an overlay to tell you at least which gun you're using and how much ammunition you've got left. But Ghost Recon: Future Soldier gives its players information far beyond that. The game presents an augmented reality-style overlay over your field of view that shows potential enemy locations and other intelligence data. And a new kind of HUD emanates like a holographic projection around your gun and shows which weapon you've selected, as well as remaining ammo. The HUD looks like it floats in space, so as you move the information displays for a better view you never have to take your eyes off the enemy.

In the real world, research projects using overlays to augment reality are everywhere. Getz pointed out just a few that helped inspire the game's tech: BMW has introduced a "maintenance goggles" concept for cars, where a technician can see an overlay of needed repairs and how to do them. Mapping technology already uses augmented reality. For example, the Yelp app for iPhone has a mode that displays nearby restaurants in your vicinity; you just hold your phone and point it the way you want to go. This pool table concept at Queen's University could teach players the game by displaying the best angles and caroms for accurate shots.

DeGay says that fully augmented reality in every solider's field of view is many years away, simply because the technology would require excessive battery power. But in some ways the tech is already creeping into use on the modern battleground. Soldiers can use computers and even an iPad to see mission status, whether troops have enough water for a given objective, track movements, and check ammo levels. In a more futuristic vein, the Nett Warrior program?a research project by the U.S. military that is developing an advanced combat suit for future soldiers (formerly known as Future Force Warrior)?also uses a dropdown HUD that shows an augmented view of the battlefield, although the HUD blocks one eye and does not use an overlay view.

And, Getz says, the pop-up display will become more necessary for future weapons, such as guns held at the waist, because soldiers will need to keep an eye on the enemy and see a pop-up that shows ammo remaining. "For non-eye-aligned personal weapon systems to be fired accurately from the first round out of the barrel, some kind of camera/heads-up-display targeting system will be needed," he says.

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