The Division 2 Announced!
At long last, the news arrived at E3 that the follow-up to the much hyped and rather maligned (at first) The Division will be released on the 15th of March, 2019.
Oh yes. Rejoice. Pardon me while I go and look at some of the books we got from Denver Comic Con yesterday.
Yeah, you go do that. Anyway, I’ve written about The Division a couple of times in the past on my WordPress page, but not here. To make a long story short, I liked the original Division, but there was a lot of room for improvement. Lo and behold, Ubisoft actually made improvements. A lot of them.
More content, bug fixes, weird doors getting fixed and the like. New weapons and an added zone that is quite challenging along with Global Events that resulted in some pretty choice loot for those of us who like to see bigger numbers on a hit.
Now, there are some things that still grind my gears, such as having to unload a hundred rounds into someone’s face to eliminate the threat, the enemy AI always knowing where I am somehow even though I’m behind cover, but…meh.
I can forgive this. It’s still fun. It’s a good way to shut off my brain and just lay waste to bad guys.
So imagine my glee when the sequel was announced. There was much squee-ing to be heard. I was rather giddy at the prospect of taking back even more of New York.
This is when things took a twist. I wasn’t going to be going back to the snow-clogged and rat infested streets of the Big Apple with its abandoned cars seemingly powered by nuclear reactors…
…I’m going to be going to Washington D.C.
*Zzzzz-snerk* Haweh? Say what now?!
Yeah, I thought that might get your attention. The Division 2 will be taking place about six to seven months after the events of the original, after the virus has burned out. The player’s character will be tasked in cleaning up D.C. in order to keep the country from collapsing.
Ah…heh.
Yeah. Talk about a loaded premise, which I won’t get into here. So, back to the game.
While the game play is pretty much the same in mechanics, some things will be changed. The skill trees will be reworked, some previously existing skills will be removed. From what media I’ve watched and read, it appears to be a mix of Fallout 4 meets Destiny with a sizable helping of the original game. However, since Washington D.C. is more open, it feels like you’ll definitely need to be keeping an eye on your surroundings to make sure a sneaky AI doesn’t come in and give you a dose of surprise lead head.
I’m kind of iffy on this one. I find it fantastic that Ubisoft are listening to their player feedback and striving to do better. The first year of DLC is free, which got my hopes up. No Battle Royale mode, thank goodness. That’s been done to death already. I’m a little disappointed in the fact that all the time I spent playing through New York will be mostly for naught – although Ubisoft appears to be taking the Destiny route here and adding commendations to the present game and floating it over to the sequel.
I can understand it, but I can’t say I’m all that keen on it. ButI’m hoping to get lucky again – being in the original beta was a blast.
Time will tell, I suppose. I’m hopeful, as I still play The Division a great deal and enjoy myself quite a bit doing so.
For those wishing to possibly get an early look at The Division 2, Beta access can be applied for here.
Those looking for some in depth views of in-game menus and stats can find them on MarcoStyle’s YouTube channel here.
As always, thanks for stopping by.
Ken (or "Börken" as his gaming friends refer to him) spends his time reading books at a speed several words over the posted speed limit, makes things explode virtually (and sometimes literally), and is always busy raising a 7 year old Princess who's quite capable of rescuing herself, thank you very much.