When first mentioned at Ubisoft’s press conference in 2013 I was very, very excited for this game. It looked wonderful when they revealed this premise of what would happen if our world “USA”, would be if our “complex but fragile” society were under attack. From then on The Division faded into obscurity - Ubisoft only putting out little tidbits of information and allowing others to participate within the closed betas on both computers and consoles. Little information was received from players of the betas probably due to disclosure agreements. Before it’s release in March of 2016, I was super excited to get this game. It was about to be spring break and I had watched multiple advertisement videos that many famous YouTubers created to promote and hype this game. The visual stylings and direction by both Ubisoft and Youtube content creators DEVINSUPERTRAMP, CorridorDigital, and lastly RocketJump Studios have created a wonderful introduction to the game that was about to be released.

My Experience with Tom Clancy’s: The Division

When I received my copy I pre-ordered and fully paid for the gold edition which included the season pass and base edition of the game - saving the player about ten dollars. But once I received my copy - I went to my computer science classes, went home, and took only bathroom and food breaks. This game consumed a large part of my sophomore semester mainly because it came out right before Spring Break. I maxed out my level within 3 days of playing and went on to grind for the best gear while also playing with my friends and enjoying the Dark Zone rarely as well.

After Spring Break I needed some time to devote myself to my classes and so I left my Xbox at home and went into studying and finals mode. But once I came home with my packed bags that summer I never really ventured back into the game. Patches were released but it just glossed over a lot of the things that players wanted. From my view - it seemed like they released this game and wanted to put in the good stuff later. But after a few months, I came back to play Survival - a mode recently introduced in patch 1.5 and I think I’m back for good.

Price

Tom Clancy’s: The Division can be purchased as the base game or the gold edition. The Gold Edition comes with the base game and the season pass and the base edition comes with only the base game. When I first purchased the game it came out to one-hundred dollars and the base game was the normal sixty dollar price. If you’re looking to make a swift purchase today the game comes out to $19.99 for pre-owned versions at Gamestop, Best Buy, and Amazon. If you’re looking to purchase a new version the game comes out to $49.99 at Gamestop, Best Buy, and Amazon. If you’re looking to buy the Gold Edition it would be $89.99 at all mentioned retailers.

Gameplay

Single Player? (Can it really be called single player?)

I don’t know if I can call this game single player mainly because it requires an online connection in order to play it. But if you don’t have an Xbox Live account, Playstation Network account, or not playing on a PC, then you’re out of luck because you cannot play this game. I don’t see the reason why this game wouldn’t have an offline campaign. So I took to the internet to search for the reason why you need an internet connection for this game. The user The Bank asks a forum the same question and received answers from helpful users Hannibal Lamb and Zero, in which they respond, “You're always online” and “Online is required to help ensure no duping and such.” Duping is slang for duplication - a practice in which players in MMOs or other games recreate really, really good items by manipulating said game by either messing with code or using an exploit that the creators haven’t patched. However, if you do have a secure and reliable internet connection you can play the game solo - where you go throughout the campaign and fight NPCs and Elites to level up and find better gear than what’s currently equipped.

Solo gameplay is very, very nice. The story drags you into a new world where a virus runs rampant because it’s placed on a dollar bill and spread during Black Friday. Once everything ran its course, life in New York City has become apocalyptic and horrifying where you come across the Rioters: thugs abusing citizens for food and water, the Rikers Gang: a gang of prisoners terrorizing the soldiers stationed throughout the city, the Cleaners: a group of people that want to purify the virus by burning everything in their path, and lastly The LMB: a mercenary force hired to protect the assets of important companies but now rules parts of the city under a fascist rule.

There are two different types of missions that take place within the game - side missions and story missions. When the game starts you’re placed in a tutorial area in which you learn most of the important mechanics of the game such as movement, shooting, aiming, rolling, and taking cover. After you touch base with the mechanics you’re tasked with starting a base of operations - a hub established in the city where you can get crafting items and buy weapons and armor later in the game. The Base of Operations is also where you can craft your skills such as healing stations, auto turrets, mobile cover and more. Story missions allow you to get resources to create wings in the screenshot above - all of which create your specific skills depending on how many supplies you accrue by either completing both story missions and side missions. Other side missions would be discovering the lore of The Division by going around the city and collecting intel, phones, echoes, and messages left by the deceased and those currently experiencing the problems of current New York currently.

Multiplayer?

Multiplayer is a very complex and different environment than the single player. Once you enter the dark zone it’s a whole new field of goodies. I’ll go over the basic stuff first - multiplayer would be considered four different things regarding the new patches. The first to mention would be doing challenging missions and farming for loot. The second would be doing either incursions or the underground. The third would be creating a party to venture into the Dark Zone to get high-end loot. Finally the fourth would be to play survival either by yourself or with a group of four.

Challenging Missions and Farming

When you finish the game fully and finally complete your Base of Operations you can either do one of two things - go to the Dark Zone to get better loot and face P.v.P, challenging missions, survival, and the Incursion or Underground to get gear pieces and both high-end weapons and armor. Challenging missions are story missions that you can play again at a much higher difficulty once a week or as a daily task that the game developers had put it to draw the player back to the game and give them a reason to play after finishing the campaign. Other than end game loot you could also get Phoenix Credits and in-game currency for completing such tasks in order to re-roll gear and get stats on armor or gear pieces that would be sometimes rare to get depending on your luck.

Incursions or Underground

Included in later patches after the base game was released - players got two updates that allowed for side missions that were replayable and introduced gear sets that changed up both P.v.P. and P.v.P. These side missions were somewhat story driven and take place after the events of the last mission in the campaign. Other than that I don’t have much to say mainly because I wasn’t around when these patches occurred. I was too busy playing Overwatch.

Going into the Dark Zone

The Dark Zone is the P.v.P. area where you and up to four players including yourself can put your skills to the test against other players to hunt elites for high-end loot, visit safe houses for gear unavailable in the P.v.E. areas, and extract gear under immense pressure. What’s very interesting is that you can even leave your own party and turn on your own teammates. If you turn on other agents within the game - your status will become rogue. Becoming a rogue agent could be considered dangerous depending on how well the other agents in your vicinity are equipped. There are different tiers for being rogue . In the base game, once you marked your area for extraction and place your items in the helicopter tether, your gear would be shipped out and couldn’t be tampered with. In the later patches, they added hijacking - you can place your items on the tether but another agent can cut your items off, causing them to become rogue.

Problems of becoming rogue are that if you get killed you lose a lot of Dark Zone experience points, and keys to open Dark Zone loot chests. It’s important to mention the problems because once you lose that experience it renders you unable to buy gear or high-end blueprints in the Dark Zone safehouses.

The P.v.P. zone is an intense action zone where you need to watch where you place your shots because if you’re not careful - you can become rogue yourself. If you decide to go to the DZ with a group of four it’s nice because you won’t be able to hurt your teammates; however, if they shoot a neutral agent it’ll cause you to become rogue too.

Survival

Added in the most recent patch and my favorite addition to the game is Survival. A barebones mode where everyone starts fresh but play for a limited time. This game mode’s time limit depends on how you play it. If you play it hastily - your game might end quickly; however, if you play it safely and quietly it may take more than an hour. What’s most interesting about Survival is that there are two options of play, P.v.E., and P.v.P. where both are very heart racing and action packed. When you begin survival your player only has minimal equipment and the only weapon equipped is a pistol. What’s important to know is that there’s also a heat gauge - it’s very cold where you are and you need to make sure that you bundle up or else you’ll die of hypothermia.

Another thing to manage is your death timer. Everyone starts off with a fifty-minute death timer - given as a clever disease that’s about to destroy your immune system if you don’t get out immediately. The goal towards survival is to get into the Dark Zone after getting into your starting area, getting some medicine for people in your base of operations, and getting as much sealed caches as possible for high-end loot or gear sets. Keep in mind in order to retain your heat you must craft both clothing and armor to keep your health intact and to keep you warm. Enemies can drop weapons and clothing and you can scavenge the streets for the equipment you need.

Once you get into the Dark Zone your goal is to craft a flare gun in order to extract, get the medicine, and get the caches. Once you get your items, gear, and mark for extraction - you need to hunker down. The best addition to survival is the fight against the Hunters, a group of “rogue” agents that come after you to steal what you’ve earned in your Survival experience. These agents are actually NPCs that play like human players but can be easily dispersed with high-end weapons that you can craft in safe houses if you’ve collected the right items.

Conclusion?

Originally I started this game with an expression of excitement to play with a four-man squad composed of both me and my friends; however, it took me a while to convince others to play. Once I got to max level when the game was first released I grew bored and lost the will to play but I also needed to focus on my work in school because finals were approaching. Coming back to this game after a long break was refreshing mainly because I wanted something new and something risky to play other than diving head first into the Dark Zone. But once I played Survival I was happy - all those times I spent farming both the Dark Zone and Challenging Missions were redeemed when I stepped into the newest game mode. I loved the thrill of playing it, the sense of danger at every corner, and the feeling that you need to keep moving no matter what you got. I would give this game a 9/10 because the developers finally figured out what it was lacking.