Developer: Multiple Ubisoft companies, Massive Entertainment
Publisher: Ubisoft
Platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tested on: PS4
The Division 2 – Review
Starting out as a game released in 2016, the first Division part got some mixed reviews yet still was an overall commonly accepted action-heavy game. No wonder that a second part saw the light this year. Create your own agent as you follow a war for a broken Washington D.C. in a fictive dystopian America. Play alone or with some friends, and shoot up.. everything.
Story
As Washington DC is being overtaken by hostile groups called the True Sons, the Hyenas, the Outcasts and the Black Tusk, you and a few other brave agents are the only ones who can stand against these types of animals.The Virus that broke out in the first Division game in New York, also seems to be present here now. Protect civilians and use your special set of skills to drive back the aggressive madness that infiltrated your once proud country. The main theme of the missions and everything that you will do in this sequel is restoring hope. With very few cutscenes, but enough text and echoes (remnants of the past that show you things that happened with seemingly random people), the story is guiding you just enough to stay interesting as far as you’re able to follow it. Essentially, what you need to know is that you are the good guys and you are fighting the bad guys.
Graphics
A great part of the game where it really shines is the graphics. Where the few basic cutscenes that the game has seem to be dating from 2004 when looking at the quality of the models and the movements, the environments are really top-notch! There is barely any part of the world that The Division 2 spread before you that seems the same. There are really a lot of models and environmental details that could keep you busy for hours. Even some jokes or special weird things that make you look twice are placed at the most random places. In-game, the quality of enemy animations and endless battles are done nicely as well. The only small remark is that the indicator that is supposed to guide you to your next part of the mission or interactive object isn’t always very clear and easily gets lost in your environment.
Sound
Aside from the incredibly cheesy lines that your enemies throw at you (”You’ll regret that!”) the voice-acting is pretty well done and is perhaps the main part that keeps you connected to the story by creating somewhat recognizable characters that will show their faces, or let you hear their voices, multiple times during the missions you follow up on. The sound effects are done pretty well and shooting most guns feels very fitting mainly thanks to the sounds. The background music is.. questionable but weirdly fitting with a lot of 80s synth music going on, as well as some slightly more action-heavy tunes.
Gameplay
The Division 2 falls somewhere between a third-person shooter and an MMORPG (massive multiplayer online role-playing game). You are placed on a map that feels pretty big and is divided into multiple areas that have different level requirements. It’s a system that’s comparable to let’s say a game such as.. World of Warcraft. You are basically free to go anywhere you’d like, but if you are level 5 and go into a zone that is 20+, you can be pretty sure you won’t survive. When just walking around without goals, the game mixes free-roaming objectives such as collectible items, a variety of enemy patrols, and sub-objectives you can come across such as rescuing hostages, fighting for territory, or taking over a propaganda broadcast. What’s done really well in The Division 2 is that pretty much everything you do will contribute to giving you experience in some way, making leveling your character feel natural and smooth.
The goals that are not random consist of a meager story-driven fight to take back a fictive America, fighting off multiple factions that all try to claim their part of the chaos. There are side-missions that will help you get stronger and rebuild humanity’s hope and living circumstances, and there are main missions that often are bit longer (and harder) to finish accompanied by small bits of story. For now, the level cap is set to level 30, which you will probably reach in about 30 to 40 hours of game-time. Also, there are various skills from which you can bring two with you at all times, such as a deployable turret or drone, a rolling grenade that will seek out your enemies, a ballistic shield, and more that are either offensive or supportive. There are also perks that you can upgrade with collectibles all over the map, but upgrading these goes pretty fast and you will quickly pick out the most important or those that seem fun for you and probably stick with them.
So far, the only bug that has been game breaking was a bug where skills didn’t work. Other than that, we’ve experienced a variety such as wall glitches, the PS4 controller that kept on informing us of the same thing when an objective was close and was stuck in a loop, instant deaths without reason, weird NPC locations and a couple more. But besides the occasional bug, The Division 2 has two main points of critique. For one, the taking-cover-and-movement-system leaves some things to be desired. The controls aren’t always very responsive when you want to go out of cover again, which can cause you to be a sitting duck to be shot from behind by flanking enemies. The same goes for some objects that seem to be interactable in terms of jumping on or over them. This can cause you to be stuck on a weird area between two streets, again basically having a huge target on your back in a firefight.
The other annoying part is that the game is a lot better with friends. Yes, you can also do matchmaking, but solo players will have a hard time in certain situations. Strongholds are (close to end-game) instances, and they can be very heavy on you if you play alone. But worse than that are modes such as 4-vs-4 Deathmatch matchmaking. The game links somebody with high-end gear and damage to those with low-end gear, and it’s basically impossible to win like that. The one with higher level gear will be hard to scratch and you will die almost instantly. Other than that, it has to be said, you can also go for PvE and there is a lot to enjoy in The Division 2. Maybe some more instances/dungeons/strongholds would be welcome in the future, but despite everything that can be marked as ”wrong” in the game, it still pulls off a solid performance that will take quite a bit of your hours for sure.
Conclusion
Fun and addicting to play, The Division 2 is set up with its smooth leveling system and plenty to do to make you not get bored, it played out as a successful MMORPG third-person shooter. The environments are really well made with great details, and the overall atmosphere is just there. The few bugs and sometimes frustrating movement system are not enough to make it a negative experience, but the future might hold great things for this game if it’s totally polished and starts to get even more content.
The Division 2 - Review,
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