The Division 2: Review

The Division 2

Ah The Division 2, the younger, slicker, more learned sibling of The Division, a game which promised so much and... well we know the story.

The Division 2 is set in Washington DC and follows on from the story of the original Division. The world has fallen into chaos due to the deadly Green Poison or Dollar Flu, a man made super-virus designed for population control. You, as an elite member of The Division, are tasked with restoring order to a Washington in chaos.

The setting of The Division 2 is truly stunning as you travel across a 1:1 scaled section of Washington DC. Your Agent will traverse across a mind-bogglingly detailed world where all the signs of the collapse of society are worryingly believable. The roads are littered with abandoned belongings, broken down vehicles and the festering corpses of the forgotten dead. At one point during my initial stream, I stopped and had to call over my friend to look at where an Ambulance had pinned the body of some gang member against a concrete barricade (The ambulance driver was dead in the driver's seat). There are stray dogs that run from the alleyways, deer that skip through the overgrown parklands and a generous array of suitably skilled AI gangs that will keep you from wondering off into random thoughts whilst travelling from mission to mission.

The weather effects completely change the gameplay style of the game too from blinding sandstorms to heavy fog and torrential downpours meaning your approach to encounters will vary vastly. The soundtrack constantly jolts you into suspicious alert as voices cry out for help, gunfire echoes from somewhere amongst the buildings and the dangerous enemies call out their various intentions to find a way to kill you.

All in all, the world is fantastic with a sobering glimpse of how civilisation could quite conceivably turn out. You find yourself constantly drawn to the smaller details and not in such a way that it detracts from the actual game mechanics. The irony of a world where death is literally on every road, is that it makes this grim environment feel very much alive and real. Everything in The Divison 2 wreaks of a game designer who made absolutely sure to impress their vision of what this world would look like.

Soloplay

Taking the fantastic scenery aside for a moment, and this is difficult as the setting lends very much to the experience in The Division 2, we need to break this game down into two categories, Solo and Multiplayer.

The Divison 2 is an open world online experience but your own experience will depend on your approach. Single player feels for the first ten levels as a steady paced, tactical affair where you quickly can predict enemy movements and generally fair well. There were a couple of occasions where I was outflanked but this was more to do with a lack of concentration than a tactical masterclass by the AI and so I did find the gameplay became a little repetitive. Now The Division 2 is not just a levelling experience but my mind did slip back to the first game where the grind became a little boring and 'samey'. What you take out of this game as a solo player will very much depend on your style of play but as someone who enjoys storyline and immersion, the mechanics have yet to evolve beyond anything more than just enemies who soak up a few more bullets than the previous ones.

Multiplayer

OK so this is where the game play really starts to become involved. Encounters whilst running with teammates can become frantic, determined affairs where calling out enemies, getting off a last second heal or dropping an enemy a second before he kills your partner is regular and needed. The enemies come thick and fast and the difficulty level does increase. Yes as with the point before, the enemies are able to soak up more damage but the encounters just feel more intense and you do finish them feeling like a crack SAS squad as you walk away victorious. There is a real sense of adrenaline to pulling off a heal having stunned the enemy boss with a grenade, only for an enemy to rush from behind and your re-healed partner shooting him at the last moment before you have time to turn and realise the danger.

The gameplay feels a little less repetitive in Multiplayer as the AI mechanics do feel a lot different reacting to your presence and I am now left feeling less drawn to running solo as I am to running with teammates.

Summary

Overall, The Division 2 is a great game with amazing scenery, an immersive soundtrack and strong gameplay. The world is darkly vibrant with a gritty realism that provokes thought and wonder and each detail feels deliberate and aimed to attract your attention. So far as controls are concerned, the responsiveness of the character is solid and you feel almost always in control so far as movement and interactions are concerned. Yes there is a repetitiveness in the gameplay but the reality is that a gun can only fire in so many ways and fans of this type of game will appreciate that. I am strongly drawn to playing this game with friends for the more intense enemy encounters but let this not detract from a great solo experience also. The Division 2 promises lots of updates and I would hope they add more gameplay elements in the long run.

Rating: 8 out of 10

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