Having now spent an entire day on The Division 2 with Will and Luke, this article will cover my first impressions of the game; I need to spend more time with it to really review it properly.
Luke made a good point before this game, saying that it would be fantastic as it’s the second game in a Ubisoft series (Look at Watch Dogs or Assassin’s Creed as examples), and to be honest he really isn’t wrong – After spending all of my Sunday on it, I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up in my top 5 games of the year. The Division 2 combines tactical/cover shooting, open world fun and loot collection to create a virtual Washington DC that leaves you wanting more.
First thing to note here, this sort of game really isn’t my cup of tea, but the way this game has been designed makes me want to get as much co-op action as I can get. The game forces you to use cover as much as you can as even a group of low level enemies can punish you if you’re out in the open; after dying frequently (And you will die a lot), we quickly realised that you must make use of the tactical gameplay that’s been crafted. There are so many minute details that really give this game an edge, for example I went through a few guns going ‘this is OK‘ until I found a large machine gun that was accurate and powerful, and felt different to the other machine guns I had used previously; I knew I wanted to mod this one to the max. As well as the awesome guns, you have special skills that can help you and your team turn the tide of battle – At the moment I have a drone that acts as a second aerial gun and a healing nanobot device that can be placed in area (Usually behind cover) to heal you all. With the team all using different skills you can combine to become pretty formidable.
Ubisoft’s classic open world ‘control bases on your map’ game design works really well here, you need to work your way through DC (Following a very loose storyline of chemical warfare) to build up your bases and unlock more resources for them. Picking up certain side missions or seeking out certain icons on the map allows you to obtain these resources and upgrades, and will often have you taking on a building full of enemies or surviving waves until your task is completed. You’ll find that the open world is generally very busy and you won’t get far until you come up against a few baddies, you’ll find if you’re used to playing with your buddies and they’re elsewhere in the map, the battle becomes a lot tougher.
The enemies also seem to very varied; so far I’ve encountered ‘methed’ up loonies who have no tactics and lots of balls, and also marines who play more like you. Most of the enemies drop loot so you can change every piece of your armour and loadout, and even destroy items for crafting materials; I’ve yet to really explore it but the crating and equipment system seems very in-depth.
So far the game has utterly impressed me do far and it’s definitely becoming one of my favourite co-op games, and something that’s going to make me want to jump on with friends. My first impressions are very good, and my full review will be coming soon.