Tom Clancy’s The Division 2

Developed by: Massive Entertainment
Published by: Ubisoft
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC

Released in March 2019, Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 is the follow-up to 2016’s online-only action role playing game The Division and switches its setting from the urban wasteland of a pandemic-stricken New York to a similarly devastated and derelict Washington DC. This change in locale offers up some variety in level design – where The Division focused on high-rise buildings and the narrow streets of New York, The Division 2 has areas of open greenery and iconic landmarks such as the White House and Lincoln Monument. Setting the game in the former capital of the USA places the player at the heart of the country’s restoration efforts, whilst providing a slightly different tone to the preceding title. The upcoming The Division: Heartland looks to further broaden its horizons by taking players to rural Middle America and the fictional town of Silver Creek.

On the surface, The Division 2 is extremely similar to its predecessor, aside from some additional perks and specialisation skills. For hard-core gamers, there are plenty of different weapon types and skill bonuses to customise a build that will succeed in the game’s PVP ‘Dark Zones’. I tended to play the same character build – assault rifle and sniper rifle – and just upgraded my weapons as and when I found more impressive stats. The depth of the customisation increases tenfold once players hit the end-game (post-Level 30) and are able to extract statistics and perks from weapons to create their own bespoke items. As with The Division, looting resources and items is a core mechanic for the game and the harder the difficulty of a mission, the more rewarding the loot is. This encourages online play, and I found the game regularly prompted me to “answer the call” and help other players who were having trouble.

One highlight from The Division that made its way to the sequel was the wealth of collectibles and side-stories that helped to cultivate the game’s lore. I absolutely loved uncovering a hidden tape recorder on my travels through the decaying streets of Washington DC and listening to the backstories of some of the NPCs I’d come across in the main storyline. This world-building is spectacular and rewards players for performing some urban exploration outside of the mandated mission list. The vast world map of Washington DC is riddled with little areas to uncover, and the scope increases with the Warlords of New York DLC, which adds a whole new post-game narrative and secondary world map located in Manhattan. Ubisoft have frequently updated the game with new post-game missions and locales over the past four years and have supported the title with seasonal events called Manhunts, which allow players to hunt new boss enemies and partake in limited-time events.

Mirroring the format of the Warlords of New York DLC, the seasonal manhunts require players to hunt down four deputies by completing a number of objectives; such as bounties, control points and propaganda broadcasts. Once all four deputies have been disposed of, the player is able to undertake a limited-edition remixed version of a previous mission in order to take out the high-value target. As with the main game, these manhunts are supplemented by audio Intel that fleshes out the personalities of these antagonists and continues to develop the ongoing narrative. After hitting a dead-end once I’d completed The Division, I was pleased to see Ubisoft had invested a lot of time into making the endgame of The Division 2 so compelling. I also enjoyed the ‘season pass’ reward system that allowed players to unlock new weapons and cosmetics for their character, further encouraging me to grind out missions to reach the next checkpoint.

The Division 2 doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it certainly improves upon almost every aspect of the original game with better graphics, more detailed weapon customisation and a robust and ever-changing endgame set-up. My main issues with the game related to the PVP elements – the Dark Zone irritates the hell out of me as most players who roam the landscape are impossible to kill and end up stealing valuable items and EXP. Similarly, the PVP skirmish mode doesn’t work well and I often found myself in severely one-sided fights. These game modes must have some fans, but I was more drawn to the co-op elements of the game, even though I preferred to play through the main missions solo. Luckily, The Division 2 has so many elements to it that if one particular game mode does not appeal, it doesn’t impact upon the others. My only nit-pick was that I couldn’t complete the full achievement list because of the over-powered rogue agents murdering everyone on sight in the Dark Zone.

With a captivating storyline and truly addictive gameplay, The Division 2 is easily one of my favourite games of the last few years. With hundreds of collectibles to find and thousands of weapon customisation options, gamers can find themselves becoming obsessed with the minutiae of the game. I would get a genuine dopamine rush whenever I would find a new recording, or earn a new exotic item for my build. The combination of role-playing and character customisation with fast-paced action combat is utterly enthralling and I found it difficult to log off sometimes, wanting to “just do one more mission”. There are other ‘live service’ games out there that use similar gaming mechanics – most notably, The Elder Scrolls Online and Destiny 2 –but both lack the haunting realism of this near-future shooter. I cannot wait for the upcoming titles in the franchise; The Division: Heartland promises a more survival-driven narrative whilst The Division: Resurgence looks to condense the whole experience onto mobile handsets. Both games look fantastic and I am also looking at checking out The Division novels from Aconyte Books to explore more about the game’s lore. Even after uninstalling the game after unlocking 93% of the achievements, part of me wants to boot it back up just to explore the world and see what new content Ubisoft has added. This is not like me at all – I rarely replay games once I’ve finished them, so this just shows the effect that The Division 2 has had on me!