We made it, shooter fans. The Tom Clancy’s The Division release date is finally here, giving gamers an opportunity to explore what remains of Manhattan just a few weeks after a biological attack brings New York City to its knees. More importantly, we’re pleased to report our first dozen or so hours with The Division have been surprisingly pleasant…with a few exceptions.
Coming out of the game’s open beta, which took place last month, we weren’t sure there would be a future for The Division in today’s market. The game’s fast travel system seemed poorly implemented, our time in the Dark Zone was incredibly underwhelming and there was a shocking lack of variety to the enemies encountered in the early build. Some of these concerns remain. But other issues we had with the unfinished game were rectified during the final countdown to The Division release date. And there are plenty of new reasons to praise the game, too.
Massive Entertainment knocked it out of the park when it comes to The Division’s shooting mechanics. Gunplay hasn’t felt this action-packed in years, probably going back to the 2014 debut of Destiny, and the six classes of weapons featured in The Division give players the tools needed to fight their way out of any dire situation. We’re also big fans of the game’s cover system; particularly the ability to identify and relocate to new defensive positions with a single button press. Some might be off put by how heavily the game stresses the use of cover, along with traditional flanking and suppression tactics, but it’s nice to see a shooter prioritize strategic thinking over quick reflexes.
The studio also did an admirable job of finding new and interesting places for gunfights to break out in the wreckage of NYC. We battled Cleaners in the sewers, chased rioters out of Madison Square Garden, fought our way in/out of a skyscraper and traded gunfire with malevolent individuals in dozens of other locations we’d rather not spoil for you. Using the game’s three primary quest lines, along with dozens of side quests and encounters spread throughout Manhattan, Massive takes players on an extensive tour of the borough. It’s enough to make you forgive the studio for limiting its digital recreation of New York to Midtown Manhattan. We’re not sure they’d have ever finished The Division if the team tried to create this much content for the entire city.
From a design standpoint, we’re still big fans of the The Division’s user interface. We were a bit disappointed to see that navigating the game’s map still doesn’t look quite as futuristic as it was depicted in early trailers. But the overall presentation of the UI feels natural, integrating with the world in a way that should instantly feel familiar to fans of augmented-reality apps and technology. The Division serves up interesting data in real time, based on your current surroundings, as you lead your agent through New York City. Most impressively, the UI helps The Division establish its own unique feel without sacrificing practicality; a feat that has eluded many developers in recent years.
Giving players the ability to queue up for missions, without making them travel to the starting point first, is another big win for Massive. We’ve seen similar systems implemented in massively-multiplayer games before, like giving group leaders the ability to queue a whole party, but this marks the first time (in recent memory) that a game let us queue up for a mission and then try to finish up another quest while we wait. The game’s matchmaking servers have also been performing admirably thus far, minus that brief outage last night, and the ability to fast travel to your party leader is the kind of quality of life feature we’d like to see in more multiplayer titles.
Our first day with The Division hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows, though. It may not be important to everyone, but one of our biggest complaints with the game remains the startling lack of variety among the enemy units. We’ve only encountered two factions thus far, Rioters and Cleaners, but it looks like Massive only bothered creating one character model for each class. Sure, melee units look a bit different than grenadiers or marksman. But we’re talking about minor differences, like a face mask instead of a face-obscuring hoodie, and there’s never any sort of variety among units from the same class.
In some ways, the uniformity of the game’s enemies makes the gangs feel like they belong in a Batman game, led by one of the dozens of semi-recognizable villains who get rotated into the line-up when the writers decide to bench the Joker. And, to be fair, we’re big fans of the Arkham games here at iDigi. But that formula only works if we have some reason to fear whoever runs the gang. Unfortunately, the one gang leader we’ve encountered thus far was introduced mid-mission…and dead by the end of it. And, other than a slightly bigger costume, it wasn’t clear why he was so important. There was no explanation of how he’d convinced a bunch of homicidal maniacs to follow him or how they’d all managed to find matching uniforms in a dying city. We appreciate Massive taking a more realistic approach to boss design. We just wish they’d been less heavy-handed when it came time to costume the flunkies.
Enemy and weapon balance could also use some work. We know The Division is designed to be a group experience and that playing these types of games solo will always be a challenge. But there are some missions that feel downright impossible without a helping hand or over-leveling your agent. Granted, you can avoid those missions until you exceed the minimum recommended level. But the side content isn’t quite enjoyable enough for us to enjoy extended departures from the primary quest chain.
The Dark Zone is still an incredible disappointment. The lawless portion of the map is much larger than the last time we saw it. But there’s still nothing interesting to do once you’re inside. Streets stretch out for hundreds of meters in every direction and lockboxes, that require increasingly high Dark Zone levels to open, are scattered throughout the area. But most of the action transpiring inside is still just players ambushing each other at checkpoints and extraction zones.
We’re told some players actually enjoy the trollish behavior that will likely always plague this aspect of The Division. But we’re going to need a few zone-specific missions, and/or better incentives for law-abiding agents, before we’re willing to dedicate much time to the Dark Zone.
The next few weeks will undoubtedly bring a flurry of comparisons to Destiny, as fans determine which multiplayer shooter to throw their support behind, but it’s too early to predict which game will come out on top. When it comes to content, The Division feels like a bigger game at launch than Destiny does after three expansions. Massive also does a better job of sharing their story and immersing players in the world of The Division. But the studio’s new shooter has its fair share of issues, some of which will probably remain until we see the game’s first major expansion. The Division is keeping us entertained but it is definitely too soon to start picking a winner in that battle.
All things considered, we’re cautiously optimistic about the future of Tom Clancy’s The Division. The game has its shortcomings, most notably a lack of enemy diversity and a lack of purpose for the Dark Zone, but we’re having quite a bit of fun with Massive Entertainment’s new shooter. Sure, weapon and enemy balance could use a bit of work, especially if you’re playing the game solo. Still, mission design is fantastic, the artists responsible for recreating New York did a phenomenal job and major gunfights will have you on edge of your seat. It’s also kind of refreshing to play a big-budget shooter that doesn’t cast players as the impossible savior of mankind.
It’ll be a few more days before we publish a review but consider this a cautious thumb up in the interim.
Be sure to check back with iDigitalTimes.com and follow Scott on Twitter for additional coverage of The Division throughout 2016 and for as long as Massive supports The Division in the years to come.
