It’s the end of the world. Or the end of New York (again – it’s like the Tokyo of the western world) and of course it would happen while Americans were running around spending money and punching other shoppers on Black Friday. It seems… apt. That’s the premise for The Division; a dreadful strain of smallpox has been introduced to the money being handled on the shoppiest of shopping days and a large section of New York has been cremated as a result.
There are survivors, of course, and some of them are good people, just trying to get by. Others are part of gangs of looters or misguided ‘saviours’ of the city, while you (and any companions, should you choose to take them on) are a member of the Division. These are elite sleeper agents who have lived though the epidemic and who are activated from their normal lives as part of the second wave of response to the widespread mayhem taking place. The first wave, it seems, has been wiped out, so you’ve got your work cut out for you.
MMO-RPG-Third-Person Shooter
The Division owes its existence to Ubisoft’s various open-world games as well as Activision/Bungie vehicle (not a Warthog) Destiny. It’s an always-online, MMO, RPG, third-person, cover-based, shooter. So yes, there’s a little Gears of War in there too. Only no Locust and no chainsaws. You will get to shoot literally everything else in the face though – that’s how Division members resolve all of their conflicts. They fill them with enough bullets to start a shooting range.
It Gets Better
The Division puts players into a third-person view, similar to the Assassin’s Creed games. You’re not going to be scaling buildings, you’re going to be shooting up checkpoints and enemy gangs and at first, the bullet-based combat is going to seem loose. That’s because this is also an RPG and you’re rocking entry-level gear.
You’ve also got to outfit yourself with knee pads, gloves, holsters, a backpack and a few other essentials, which stand in for the kind of armour you might wear in a medieval fantasy RPG. Like the pauldron-sort, your items will give you various buffs and, at later stages of play, can be modded like the weapons. The end result is that players become more capable as their time in The Division passes. And you need that, because your opponents are going to get tough.
Enemies And Bases
Happily, the repetition that can be found in The Division doesn’t detract too hard from the rest of it. You’re going to be too busy completing all the little side missions which feed into the main storyline, in an effort to restore order to New York. And you’re going to be doing it in stages. Taking a Level 9 character into a Level 11-13 area is a recipe for disaster, unless you’ve lucked into some impressive gear early on.
Taking each area as it comes makes sense, though, as you’re going to be restoring your base of operations, a rather large Post Office. You’ve likely done this before, first with the villa in Assassin’s Creed 2, but saving the three people responsible for medical, security, and tech and then completing missions to get them resources for upgrades makes sense in this context. Clearing each area puts you on a clear upgrade path, where the challenge is neither too hard or too easy. You’ll need to progress naturally before jumping ahead anyway – some areas are still too infectious for low-level players and you need improved filter tech to explore them without dying.
The Tale
Then there are the usual run of collectibles, like cellphone recordings and other items of a digital nature for you to listen to, read, or watch. Evidence, in video form, is a frequent reward for larger missions. There’s a lot of story in The Division and it’s almost universally good. You don’t have to go looking for most of it, it’s usually given, but you can seek out more if you like.
Verdict