The Division Game Review. Outside of a few videos highlighting the capabilities of Massive's impressive SnowDrop engine, we hadn't seen any new footage of The Division since last E3. On the anniversary of its debut, Ubisoft gave us another hands-off look that demonstrated how New York City evolves as you take sections of the city back.
For the uninitiated, The Division places you in New York City after a disease spreads through the city on Black Friday and leaves its infrastructure decimated. As a civilian member of the Strategic Homeland Division, your job is to team up with other agents to help take back the city.
In the first demo, a group of agents teams up to capture a base of operations near the 34th St. subway station in Midtown. To defeat the group of NPCs, the team must coordinate its strikes using gadgets and skills, both of which give The Division a distinct role-playing feel. A tactical read can highlight enemies in the area, a strobe drone can temporarily blind an enemy to expose him to fire, and an auto turret can keep some enemies occupied while a player rushes to heal a fallen comrade.
The second demo gave us a glimpse of how the city looked well before the area was safe enough to set up a base of operations. When accessing the map, the player is given information about the area's security level, contamination level, and morale level. To influence these readings players must take out various enemies, capture vital buildings like warehouses that hold valuable resources, and eventually capture the base of operations.
These coupled demos gave us a glimpse at one of the systems at the core of The Division, but there is still so much we don't know about the game. Right now The Division is listed for a 2015 release, but unless Ubisoft is just holding back intel on the other core elements (including the multiplayer) it has a lot of work to do before this game is ready for prime time.
Platform: PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Style: Online Multiplayer Shooter
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Massive Entertainment
Release: 2015
