Tom Clancy's The Division Review

When Society Falls, we Rise...

This is the tag-line for Tom Clancy's: The Division, it's been a heck of a time coming, and many folks had low expectations. Several betas later, including a closed, and open this year changed quite a few minds on this game and now it's out, I've been playing it for about 2 days 14 hours so far and I've hit level 30.

If you take one thing away from this review, it's a bloody good game and for someone like me who's not really into MMO's - it's fantastic.

We are The Division

NYC (and we presume elsewhere in the world) has been hit by a devastating pandemic on Black Friday. All those dollar bills, all infected with a variant of Small Pox which is utterly lethal. It took NYC by storm, and in a short while forced a whole section of the city to be walled off, shut down, and renamed: the Dark Zone.

Now Manhattan, and the various districts within, such as Gramercy, Tenderloin, and Hell's Kitchen are left to fend for themselves - it didn't take long for rioters, thugs, private military, and more to sweep in and take control. The JTF (Joint Task Force) lost control of the city and were pushed back to a few safe houses...

That's where you come in, as a newly minted agent of The Division.

The Division, a secret group of sleeper agents hidden in the population - trained to high standard, embedded and armed to the teeth. They're activated in waves, the First Wave was activated recently and has gone dark... you're part of the Second Wave.

This is where the game kicks off, and that's about as much as I'm going to tell you.

Making an Agent

There's a very slick character generation that kicks off the game, won't go too much into it, but it allows you to create your agent from a series of menus, and whilst it's not as detailed and feature rich as it could be, it does what it needs to and lets you get right into the thick of it.

Learning the Ropes

The Division gets bonus points for having a neat tutorial section, which lasts just long enough to get you up to speed on the game, provides a decent level of starter action and interaction with the player base - though be warned, some folks like to hang around in the first safehouse doorway and block people from leaving the corridor after the cut scene. Just push into them for a while and you'll phase right through and carry on your merry way. Sorry door trolls!

Every Battle tells a Story

The Division is an action rpg, with online interactions. It's kind of like an MMO, but you only interact with other players via co-op squads (up to 3 friends can join in), hubs (safe houses), and the previously mentioned Dark Zone - where there's no rules, and even a friend can go Rogue and cheat you out of your hard earned Dark Zone loot.

It's a shoot and loot game at its core, with a bunch of simple to learn, easy to understand systems that bring the whole thing together. You can see the DNA of games like Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls, Destiny, and even World of Warcraft running through The Division and it's a pretty good synergy.

As you embark on main missions, side activities, encounters, and just random shootouts - or acts of goodwill, you'll gain experience points (in addition to other rewards). Once you've amassed enough, you'll level up, and then you'll get better. Firearms, Stamina and Skill Power are your 3 main stats - each one changes something about the character, Firearms boosts your damage per second (DPS), Stamina boosts your overall Health, and Skill Power boosts your abilities.

There are 3 ability trees, and you can unlock abilities, mods for those abilities, and upgrades by doing main story missions and upgrading your base of operations. This is your own personal space, no one else gets in, it's where you can do all your crafting and more.

Agents have mobile cover, health regeneration stations, seeker mines (rolly grenades), auto-turrets, and sticky bombs to name a few of those abilities. Each one has a recharge meter and you can unlock a signature skill to boost your team later on when you upgrade your 3 wings in the HQ. These skills are also interchangeable from the slick menu interface at any time, allowing you to alter your setup on the fly, to match the situation.

Doing Things

You'll do side missions, main missions, encounters and exploration. You'll discover NYC and find out more about the places, people, what went on, and who's really behind it. You'll use the Echo System to see the past, follow clues, and save lives. In short, a lot is there for you to do in the game and none of it's boring.

Making a Home

So you have a HQ, and it's upgradeable, it unlocks abilities, talents, perks and allows you to round out your character even more. It's where you come to advance the story, buy and sell gear, make your own gear, and grab early missions from the JTF personnel there.

Basically it's a perfect place to unwind after a tense session out in Manhattan.

Exploring it, listening to the folks interacting, and watching it grow is a highlight of the game for me. You have 3 wings, Medical, Tech, and Security. Once you have all 3 up and running from the main missions, you'll start to get points each time you do a mission, or encounter which is colour coded to the type of points you'll get.

Green (Med), Brown (Tech), and Blue (Security).

Once you've got enough points you can upgrade a wing, gaining access to new abilities, new perks and talents and basically becoming more and more badass.

In essence you have two characters, you, and the base.

You'll also gain access to shops, and a very simple, but robust crafting system which lets you really boost your character.

Gear Up!

Like Diablo 3, it's all about the loot, with the various rarities. Grey (common), green, blue, purple, gold. The top high end gear is amazing, and you get a real sense of accomplishment once you get a purple drop. Gear also comes with various stats, these come in the form of bonuses, adding or subtracting from one of the 3 core stats (or all 3) in a very Diablo-esque manner. You can equip various pieces of armour, like body armour, knees, gloves, and so on - these can also be modded if they have a slot, to improve firearms, or something else.

You can equip a primary, secondary, and sidearm for your character. There's a plethora of guns to choose from, and having a marksman, shotgun, and perhaps light machinegun in your inventory even though you're not using them, is useful since you can switch out fairly quickly.

Guns can also be modded, scopes, magazines, skins, barrel mods, and more.

Cover and Shoot

The Division reminds me of Splinter Cell: Blacklist, or bits of Watch-Dogs in terms of the cover/shooting action. It's slick, it's really slick, and the cover system is a joy to use. You can move around it seamlessly, roll in and out, and you're never fighting the system. It works with you, to keep you alive.

You can rush from cover to cover, blindfire, pop up and shoot, shoot from around corners by tilting the stick and generally do all the things you need to do to put lead into your enemies. It's great fun, and since you spend a lot of time out in the field exchanging lead, it's a good job too.

Playing with your mates is the icing on the cake, some of the missions are pretty hard on your own (not impossible to do), but add in friends and you can all pick synergistic abilities that compliment each other. Augmented health stations that auto-revive downed buddies, damage and crit boosting pulses that tag enemies for example.

Or how about a flame turret to immolate your foes, and a regular turret that shreds them whilst they're on fire.

We've had some fantastic battles in this game in a squad of four, and I've had some of the best cooperative gaming for a LONG time.

Slick Tech Interface

I love the menus of The Division, it's all there, everything you need at a press of a button and navigating them couldn't be easier. Inventory management is excellent, and I like how they've changed the appearance menu since the beta - it's really good stuff. The map is incredible, and the way it superimposes itself onto the world briefly is fantastic, keeping with the high tech theme of these highly trained government agents.

Customisation

The Division also takes character look and divorces it from armour/gear, yes, there are changes when you throw on new armour and knee pads etc, but the actual hats, scarves, pants, boots, and so on are all part of the appearance menu. You'll scavenge items like this, or find them from helpful civilians, providing you have what they need on the street.

I love this, and wish more games went this route.

Intense Conflict

There's one thing I really do love about the battles in this game, beyond the cover, the design of the environments and the sheer amount of tactical opportunity that each firefight gives you due to the way cover can be used (parkouring over cars and so on with a single button whilst running away). It's the AI, it is a challenge, and it KNOWS a lot of tricks. It's an AI that has layers, not every bad guy is the same, some are stupid, they're thugs, they rush you and try and distract you whilst their friends flank and get into an advantageous position.

They use abilities, grenades and other special powers to take you down. They'll flush you from cover, concentrate on taking out your turrets and support each other.

As I've said as well, not every one of them is created equal. Each faction, from the Rioters, Rikers, Cleaners, and Last Man Battalion have different tactics. The LMB fight like soldiers, they're trained, they use cover and they know how to use teamwork.

It all adds up to an amazing experience.

Taking Back Manhattan

It's a big job taking back the city, area by area, side mission/encounter/story mission by story mission. It does feel a tad grindy, but it's a good grind and I've hit level 30 without too much trouble... felt really awesome too. I love it, and I could just roam all the streets looking for stuff to shoot all day, because I might get purple, blue or whatever loot drop. And unlike Destiny Vanilla, an hour with The Division shooting/looting reaps some pretty cool rewards at the higher levels.

I've still got a lot of collectibles to find, still got two areas, and a bunch of story missions left... so I don't feel like I'm nearly at all done with the game.

I've got the Dark Zone to explore, the PvEvP area where all the rules are off. Your friends can go Rogue, any player can go Rogue and the AI are even more powerful/aggressive, and once you call for an extraction for your loot - EVERYONE of them KNOWS.

Like flies to honey, they're drawn by the flare and they'll come in droves. So will other players, perhaps they'll help, or perhaps they'll shoot you at the end and take your stuff. They can only nick Dark Zone loot, so your PvE Manhattan loot is safe.

A Living City

Ubisoft has done an incredible job with the atmosphere of the game, the detail is mind blowing and it's the kind of thing that's a perfect showcase for new generation graphics. It looks beautiful on the Xbox One and runs smoothly, it's got layers of detail which flow through the city design, interiors, exteriors, everything...

The echo system, a bit of tech that lets you see past events by using a Cloud style databank is very reminisent of Detective Mode from Batman Arkham. It's great, it adds a high tech sci-fi layer to the game, but still feels grounded in what might be possible. It's also gorgeous to look at, and try running through the after images created by your shade tech lenses... they pixelate and break apart before reforming... again - detail.

Your character's boots leave prints in the snow, if you sprint, you get heavier prints, which are also heavy on the front of the foot compared to the heel.

Your character shuts one eye to look down the scope of their weapon...

The animations are incredible, with layer upon layer of movement, reaction, action and dynamics. Especially in a gun fight. You can stagger enemies, watch them slip, stumble and regain their footing.

It's not just the animation either, the ambiance, the sound design, and the audio are SO good in The Division. The game is brimming with dialogue, and in a fight, the enemies call out to each other, they react to your character/and friends.

I was on my own, got into a small skirmish with the Rikers. One of them calls out!

"He's on his own, we can take him!"

This was just as my friend popped around the corner, to which suddenly the Rikers yell, "Damn, he's got backup!"

I throw down a turret...

"What the hell, they've got a robot gun?"

It's little things like this which elevate a game, make it even more special, and make it so much fun!

Now imagine all of this going on in a heavy snowfall, with fog and beautiful lighting effects everywhere at night.

That's The Division!

A New-Gen Game at Last

I'd go so far as to say that it's definitely a New-Gen game, it's great, there have been very few server issues for me and to be honest, I think this has been one of the best online launches in a while. I was able to get in Day One with no pain whatsoever and play until 12:00 Midnight.

I think that speaks for itself.

The long and short of it, even if you hate MMOs, you shouldn't miss this game.

It's fantastic!

Worried about other players, don't be, you only interact with them briefly when you unlock/visit a safe house - these respawn points have had no issues, barring the first Brooklyn Safe House previously mentioned.

I've heard of long lines to use the ID laptop too, but again, never happened to me even with a new alt to test it.

It'll be interesting to see what the game offers a few months down the line, Ubi has a clear design for the content and free updates are part of it.

I'll be there, can't let NYC down!

Join me Agent!

Once again, thanks to Xbox for the game code and the Xbox Madhouse for some cracking co-op adventures!