In our first part of a two part review series we take a look at the campaign in Tom Clancy's The Division 2. The teams at Ubisoft and Massive promised to make a lot of small changes on the first entry but will it all add up to a large improvement, lets find out.

Tom Clancy’s the Division 1 received a lot of attention when it came out because it was a new IP, a new engine and a new found success. The Division quickly became a huge hit for Ubisoft but with all that glory comes a lot of pressure and scrutiny. The scrutiny the first entry received for not having much of a end game was the main sticking point for most gamers. This is understandable for a single player game but this was promised to be the new games as a service from Ubisoft. It seemed the Division and all of its greatness was just surface level. As is now the standard for Ubisoft, the company stood by its product and continued to support it by trying to fix and update all of the issues the players were having. They added new content, tweaked the loot system and promised to take all lessons learned into the next game. So how did they do ?

Immediately you are hit in the face with an array of systems in the game for levelling up your character, taking on new missions, side projects and upgrading your perks. All of these systems could be overwhelming but the onboarding is great because every time you learn a new skill there is a pretty decent slideshow explaining how the feature works in simplistic terms. You also never feel like you are wasting your time doing a side mission or taking over a control point as the games progressions system has been honed. Almost every time you pass an hour of gameplay your character will level up, no matter what activities you are doing.

Visually, the snow drop engine stands out with how good it looks this time around. The problem with the game looking as good as it does is the problems really become glaring. The NPC’s that you have to talk to and get missions from in the game are horrendous. They look almost last generation bad as the mouths on the characters don’t even move with the words they are speaking. The advancement in HDR and 4k this time around really makes the day and night shift pop with sunrise blinding at certain points of the day. The change in scenery also helps from the cold winter concrete jungle of New York that was dullish and grey to the vibrant flora and fauna in Washington, DC. There is a lot more wildlife and animals that keep the setting feeling fresh and vibrant. Even the weaponized gas that the enemies use in the game really pops on the screen with greens and yellows.

The story in the early gameplay is fairly bland and cliche. Its the same dollar flu that spread over New York in the first game and the exact same circumstances arise. Very similar baddies patrol the streets and yell profanities when they spot you and division agents are once again here to clean up the streets. You are tasked with trying to take back Washington from all the different factions that have taken over. The early main villian you encounter leaves you clues on cell phones throughout the city. A couple consistency issues arise here, the first being why would he leave these cell phones scattered throughout the city like needles in a haystack and the second is where do you find power to charge all of these cell phones in an apocalypse. One of the first missions is the game is you need to rescue someones daughter from a stronghold. You risk your life, kill hundreds of enemies, get her daughter back safely and at the end of all that she tells you that she owes you one and won’t forget what you did. If this was a real pandemic and I risked my life and murdered hundreds of people doing you a favour I would expect a little more than “ill get you next time” All of the story gripes aside most people aren’t here for plot, but here to grind out for the next level of gear and collect that perfect build.

Massive entertainment promised this time around that the enemies would feel less like bullet sponges and while they have made some changes it doesn’t feel drastically different. I can still empty a full clip of M249 into a yellow bar enemy and not take them down. One of the few differences is that now you get a small indication as to if you are damaging armour or doing actual damage. One major change that is noticeable is that the AI is not going to always sit and wait for you to take them out. You can die very quickly if you are not paying attention as enemies will either rush you, grenade you, send gadgets your way or flank you with a better position. I have even seen enemy medics revive a downed enemy, which makes managing your battles important. Even with full armour and health you will die fast whether in missions or just free roaming the streets if you’re not careful especially with your armour not automatically recharging until the battle is over and your health bar will only slowly recharge.

If you do happen to be taken down, the game does have a competent checkpoint system so you don’t have to start the mission over. There are areas in missions which have areas where you can’t respawn, which will make dying a little more of a hassle in these parts of the game. I prefer to play solo so far and the game doesn’t punish you for wanting to approach this way. The same mission that I attempted in the beta was a lot less overwhelming solo than it was with a full squad. I was also able to appreciate the actual mission more as it wasn’t a 4 player race to see who could open a gate or activate a terminal. The game will ratchet the difficulty depending on how many people are participating in the mission which is a nice feature for solo players. A nice feature in theory is the ability to call for help from an agent if you become downed. In my first many hours with the game and randomly being swarmed by the enemy in the streets unprepared I have put out a bunch of calls for help, zero have been answered. I assume that people would just rather stay to themselves and not help others if there isn’t much in it for them. Im not sure if there would be a way to entice a player to revive another random division agent. There is a trophy for completing that action which might cause trophy hunters to attempt a revive once but as it stands that trophy has been completed by 0.9% of the active agents. So not completely working as planned would be an understatement. I have tried it a few times to go and help other agents that have sent out a distress call and it is painfully slow. It puts you back to a slow loading circle and by the time you have joined the other agents game they have already quit or respawned themselves defeating the whole purpose of the distress call. This system could be great because there have been a lot of times that dying felt unfair or cheap and would leave a sour taste in your mouth and would halt you progress and force you to restart at your last checkpoint which could be far back if you are just exploring the streets as they would like you to do.

Im not sure if back in 2016 the idea of a dystopian world that you are trying to protect and regain control was a fresh idea or because its just a little too similar to the first but if I have to say something bad about the game so far is that I don’t feel the same magnetic pull to jump back in the world like I did in the first one. It could be because the gaming industry has provided so many great experiences that its hard to find infatuation with a game thats doing exactly what it did in 2016 with a refined polish. Although when i’m actually playing the game it has a great system of dangling the next carrot or mission just right in front of you and it does leave you wanting to do just one more safe house or control point before logging off.

The Division 2 doesnt reinvent the genre or even the series but it does improve upon the entry in almost every single way. If the first game was a burger and a bun then this game is a burger with a gourmet bun, all the fixings and truffle aioli. If loot shooters are your thing then this game can be quite a fun time to run the streets of Washington, either alone or with your clan. The future of The Division 2 will look bright if it can receive half of the support the team at Massive gave the first game.

4/5

Reviewed on PS4 Pro