Ubisoft Outlines The Future Of The Division
Ubisoft has come out with a big showing for Divison fans overnight with announcements focused on all three Division projects and how they are coming along. The first up on the plate was The Division 2 which is somehow about to hit year 5. I mean surely it hasn’t been out that long? Ok, so I guess it has.
It seems that despite a couple of other Divison irons in the fire, Ubisoft has no plans to stop supporting The Division 2 in the foreseeable future with a host of new stuff coming soon. The first of which is a new rogue-like mode which is called the Descent. It honestly sounds like it could be a blast and would suit the structure of The Division nicely. The full plan looks like this:
- Season 1: Broken Wings (June): This new season brings a new twist on Manhunts and introduces a new game mode titled Descent, a rogue-lite mode available for free to all Division 2 players when Year 5 begins. Players will also see the continuation of a multi-season rebuild of the Castle Settlement that will bring the devastated landmark back to life with a renewed purpose. As a part of the premium pass for Season One: Broken Wings, players will be able to unlock pieces of a Splinter Cell themed outfit to help Fifth Freedom their way throughout DC and NYC.
- Season 2: Puppeteers: A challenging new Incursion will take Agents on a venture out to the Meret Estate for another confrontation with the Cleaners.
- Season 3: Vanguard: Agents will go back to New York City for the holidays and discover new revelations about Aaron Keener and his Rogues.
- Season 4: Black Diamond: New story DLC will be available that adds new zones, new main missions, and a whole new endgame structure.
Next on the menu was The Division Heartland. This is the new free-to-play Division title that still doesn’t have a firm release date, but does have some interesting things coming soon. The game is set in the American Midwest, making it quite a different location from the other two Division titles. The setting actually reminded me a lot of State of Decay, without the undead running down every street. Gameplay looks very much like The Division, though the most interesting difference appears to be the day/night cycle, with the day spent scrounging for supplies before the night becomes a big PvEvP playground.
The big news from the stream was that the closed beta is coming up soon and if you are interested you can sign up right now at the Heartland website. The developers openly spoke of how important these beta tests are to them and they are taking a try-and-learn approach to this game, adjusting based on player feedback. It feels essentially like Early Access, just in specified time periods to me and honestly I think that could do great things with a game like this.
Finally the team touched on The Division: Resurgence, the mobile title in the franchise. It is now opening up testing on iOS platforms along with Android, so iPhone users can sign up to take part in testing at the game’s website.
In all, I feel one thing was made clear during this presentation and that is Ubisoft wants The Division to become one of its core franchises. They really want it to sit alongside Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed as one of their tentpoles and honestly, it looks to me like they are making every effort to make that happen. The F2P elements of Homefront are going to be a worry, but otherwise, I can really see this sort of game working well in that space and the continued support for The Division 2 is fantastic, it makes me want to reinstall it and see what has changed since I last played.
So there you have it. The Division looks to have a solid future ahead of it. If you want to check out the whole stream you can watch it below and in the meantime stay tuned to Player 2 as well will be keeping a close eye on the franchise as it goes forward.
