Taking a Closer Look at Tom Clancy's The Division

Tom Clancy’s The Division has piqued a lot of peoples interest, deservedly so, with its mix of third-person shooter, action RPG and MMO elements. When announced at last year’s E3, Ubisoft, once again, caught everyone’s attention and it was the talking piece for months afterwards. With the promise of four player co-op against both AI and human enemies in a persistent online world it seemed almost too good to be true. But this E3 we got the slap in the face, the pinch on the arm that we needed to wake ourselves up and show that yes, it’s a real game, and that Destiny may actually have a game that can compete against it in its very small fledgling genre.

MMO is the first thing most people hear, and are immediately put off by, and just like Bungie and Destiny, Massive Entertainment, the developers of Tom Clancy’s The Division, have made an effort to not mention the acronym at all. A persistent online world is much better suited to explain the way the game works, anyway. But what isn’t hidden is its RPG influences. Numbers pop up with every successfully landed bullet, leaving the player with no questions as to how powerful they, or the enemy, are.

There will also be leveling and skills/abilities, which we saw more of at this year’s E3. There is a new quick switch option to allow on-the-fly changing of abilities. This new feature is said to allow for greater synergy within your chosen squad. This is just part of The Division’s attempt to unclutter the traditionally large and messy RPG user interface. The way the game’s map is displayed in a bright, holographic, digital mesh on the ground wherever you happen to be standing is a great example of the studio’s commitment to this.  

This isn’t the only interesting idea The Division has, the whole game is based off an interesting idea. You’re part of the ‘Strategic Homeland Division’ (The Division for short) brought into existence to help save what’s left of society, after a ‘Dark Winter’. This is the real-life term for a scenario where hundreds of millions of people die out after a weaponised virus is unleashed on a population. In the game’s specific scenario the virus has had a 90% mortality rate, leaving only a handful of survivors to fight over what is left.

This gives us the promise of different factions vying for power in a very different post-apocalyptic landscape than we’re used to. E3 gave us the first glimpse at the first faction to be announced: The Cleaners. They appear to be heavily armoured and travel with converted garbage trucks. They promise a hard fight and show up mainly in areas where the infection is quite high. This sort of attention to detail with the story follows over into the game in less apparent ways.

The new Snowdrop engine is a proprietary technology that Massive has created just so they could build The Division the way they wanted to, and have it be a truly next-gen experience. Once witnessed in action it’s hard to go back to games that don’t have the complexities on show here. Each material reacts differently to damage. Glass shatters, metal dents, wood splinters, light and weather react to all of these in real-time and anything caught in the way of your bullets reacts as it would in the real world. The world is also always organically changing with weather effecting how areas look. This allows for some just plain astoundingly realistic environmental behaviour which only lends to the hectic, brutal, emotional and somber nature of the world you’re in.

To flesh out the already living, breathing city, E3 gave us a new storytelling device in the form of Echo. By the way of stored data captured from mobile phone cameras, CCTV and any other form of digital video, your Echo can rebuild events digitally to give you a snapshot of a moment frozen in time. This can reportedly be used to find secrets and loot, as well as just an easy way to move the plot forward.  

What Ubisoft game would be complete without some sort of ‘capture these points to unlock this area’ mechanic. It looks like The Division will not be the game to buck that trend. The introduction of the ‘Base of Operations’ seems to be exactly this, albeit with a little more input from the player this time round. Apparently they will be upgradeable with something called modules which will give different properties to the base. Any further details aren’t really forthcoming at this moment, but at least it’s a fresher take on the quite stale mechanic.

The last few things that we got a look at were some more things that cement the RPG ideals. Aggro seems to be a big player in PvE encounters, with grenades being re-worked into area-of-effect weapons rather than just straight up frag weapons. There was also a revive mechanic shown off which obviously plays into the up to four player co-op nature of the overall game. In plenty of interviews we are assured that the game has been built from the ground up with this as a staple meaning balance for all types of playstyle.

Without doubt the trailer shown at Ubisoft’s E3 conference was an attempt at more mature storytelling and to show that the game is aimed at more than just the core shooter/MMO fans. With this level of detail and attention given to every aspect of the game there is very little to be worried about, other than scope consuming the game. With plenty of gameplay footage now available the game seems to have no complaints from the majority and just an overwhelmingly large base of eager fans ready to get lost in post-apocalyptic New York and the world of Tom Clancy’s The Division.