A couple of years ago, the Division series was going to be the next big thing from Ubisoft, however, bugs and the lack of end game content made the game only graphically stunning. This is a major issue among those looter shooters: the lack of content. These projects often seem too ambitious to develop, so they create a game plan that supposed to cover the next months or even years. In most cases, this seems to work but I can’t shake the feeling that this isn’t the right way to go. People pay 60 bucks to play a game that’s lacking the content that was promised by the developers. Don’t get me wrong, most of the games figure it out along the way, like Destiny and even The Divison. These games only became better over a couple of months but are they all worth the wait? Will “The Division 2” launch with amazing features and a big dump of content to please their fanbase and even newcomers? Here are our impressions.
In “The Division 2” you’re leaving the dark and snowy New York behind and make way for “sunny” Washington D.C. For me, the environment change has already been a downside for the series. Comparing the setting of the first Division with the second is a bit disappointing when it comes to the “graphical” part. The game looks definitely okay, but it doesn’t stand out from the crowd. The setting of the first Division was much more intriguing than “the Division 2”. The snowy environments looked very realistic and created this dreadful atmosphere but in a positive way. This time around, it’s all sunny and casual. The environments are post-apocalyptic, but it feels to “sunny” and bland. My first playthrough of “The Division 2” didn’t leave me with an urge to explore the game more and see what interesting places it has to offer. Technically speaking, the game ran fluently without too many hiccups, but they do have to work on their textures because the game tends to show textures popping-in or glitches that break your immersion. As I said, the environments don’t show anything “special” that keeps my interests, so it doesn’t take much for the game to take you out of their “living world”.
Talking about the living world, even though the environment isn’t graphically convincing. The game still offers a more living world than the original. There are no more random people walking around in an abandoned city, if you’re seeing people in “The Division 2”, they’re probably roaming the area with a purpose. Squads of survivors will exit the outpost in search of items or other survivors. They will also confront the enemies and a battle of the strongest will start. The wild animal life and the natural flora is also present in Washington D.C. The city itself will also change along the way, as a certain area will be slightly different than your previous visit. Old banners being replaced, expanding outposts, … All of these little things are great because it makes their living world a lot more convincing.
The closed beta offered the players a couple of side missions, world events and also a couple of main missions. The missions were a blast to play, especially when you’re playing with friends. You can definitely tell that the game is very team based if you want to tackle the more difficult enemies. The first missions offered a lot of action but it I do hope that the design of the missions will be a lot more varied than we’ve experienced because, after these missions, you’ll gain access to a couple of end missions. Even though it was fun to play, there hasn’t been anything that convinced me of The Division’s true potential. For example, one of the end missions you get to play is just the same missions as you’ve done before but with tougher enemies. During these end missions, you can choose between 3 specializations with their own set of skills. Each of these specializations offers a unique weapon that you can test out.
The Division series is all about killing enemies over and over again, getting better weapons and better equipment while doing so. Veteran players will immediately feel like home, but I can’t tell if it’s in the right kind of way or the wrong… Let’s talk positively first, the weapons shoot as you would expect them to shoot, most of the weapons handling feel realistic, however, I do believe that some guns need some tweaking to become a lot more convincing. For example, the shotgun needs to be buffed because it feels like a toy when you’re using it. The covering mechanics are there and feel more fluently than normal. The AI is there with only one mission and that’s to kill you. They will literally find you, try to flank you and kill you if you’re not watching your backs carefully. We were confronted with some interesting battles during our time in the game. Even though, the smart enemies are still bullet sponges, the developers made a great change to make their enemies a bit more convincing. The previous game offered a health bar to all of your enemies but as you were pumping your gun’s led into them, the health bar of the enemies would slowly drain before they would kill. This felt like you’re fighting robots instead of human enemies. “The Division 2” tries something new and I do feel like they’re going in the right direction. The tougher enemies from the Division 2 will spawn with a kind of battle suit, so it makes a lot more sense that these guys need a lot more led before they’re taken down. It’s also more believable that you have to strip their armor down before you can actually kill them. Even your main protagonist, has body armor before the enemies are piercing your actual health bar. This makes the game a bit more realistic. Looting in the game is decent enough to get different kinds of weapons and armor pieces. I did have the feeling that there’s enough to go around when it comes to looting but like I said in the beginning, time will tell.
All of these features make the game enjoyable because you’re used to them. The health and armor bar is a great change to the game and its definitely for the better. However, other than these well-known features, there isn’t a lot of “NEW” that the game has to offer, and this has me worried a bit. I do believe they’ve listened to the feedback of the previous game, but I also believe that the game will need a lot more to draw people in. Is it the better version of the original “The Division”? Yes, but does it add something new to the game? Not really. People who liked the first Division will love this version as well, but people who disliked the original one will also back down from purchasing this one.
“The Division 2” is definitely a step up from the original.
Next to the shooting, is also the use of skills that play a key role in “The Division 2”. As you play the game, you’ll receive skill points. These skill points can be used to unlock your preferable skills at the quartermaster. In “The Division 2” you’re able to figure out your own skill tree that’ll match your playstyle. You can unlock skills and next to these skills, there’s also the opportunity to unlock the variants of these skills. Each unlocked skill can have a different variant, that suits another playstyle. For example, you can have a combat drone, but it can also be used to heal other players. You get a bit more freedom than the previous Division. You also have different perks that can be upgraded to become a more powerful version of that perk.
It was pleasant to see that the beta offered lots of options to customize your technical aspects. You could choose between lots of options to optimize your game and this gives an assuring feeling about the optimization options in the future. More options will be added in the full game, to make sure the game runs smoothly enough to enjoy. There have also been made changes that improve the Quality of Life such as an interesting take on the UI. Some aspects of the UI can be made bigger or smaller and you can even disable certain UI elements to your liking. This enhancement of “personalizing” will definitely be liked by lots of players.
Conclusion:
“The Division 2” is definitely a step up from the original, but I do hope they have a great plan to fill up their batch of content. I don’t mind playing the same mission on a higher difficulty, but will the game offer some great loot to keep my interest and grind my way to the top? Time will tell. I do believe that “The Division 2” has some potential and I do hope the game still has some more cards to show, otherwise it will be too much more of the same. The Dark zone is also a great part of the game, but these games have to try to find the right balance between PVE and PVP. The Dark zone will offer both groups some interesting things to do, but not every player loves PVP. “The Division 2” is an okay game that will be amazing to play with friends and all of these small changes will improve the game’s quality, but will it be enough to keep the player’s interest? The future will only tell.
