Everything We Know About the Division (January 2015)
Everything We Know About the Division video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKnSfJZ8mhwAt E3 2013, Ubisoft announced Tom Clancy’s The Division, an open world, online RPG being developed by Massive Entertainment and co-developed by Ubisoft Reflections. The Division is set to release in 2015 on the Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC with post launch DLC early exclusivity being on the Xbox One. The Division will be playable at 30FPS. There will also be a companion app available on tablets allowing players to control a drone and assist team members in game.
The Division takes place in New York three weeks after a lethal virus, released on Black Friday, has swept through the city. One by one, basic services have failed. Society has collapsed into chaos. The President invokes Presidential Directive 51, and The Division, a top-secret unit of self-supporting tactical agents, is activated. Leading seemingly ordinary lives, Division agents are trained to operate independently of command in this type of emergency situation. When the lights go out, their mission begins.
Although not officially classified an MMO, The Division has any of the same qualities and features and will be played as a third person shooter. You will be able to have multiple characters, however no specific number has been confirmed.
Survival: When you start playing the Division, your character will be equipped with 72 hours worth of basic survival supplies. From there the game will focus heavily on survival requiring you to gather food, water, ammunition and gear. You will not be required to eat and drink to survive in game, with these items instead being used to trade.
HUD: The in-game HUD is my favourite part of the game, showing a very simplified HUD that sits on the left or right of your character showing gear, ammo and gadgets. The game relies heavily on you smart watch which is used for the HUD, to generate echoes and controls the upgrade system. The smart watch also controls the mini map.
RPG: The Division is an RPG at it’s core focussed on levelling you character with no character classes in the game. Your smart watch is the location of your skill tree presenting a layer of cores upgrades, with a second layer showing perks to each upgrade and a final third layer with bigger bonuses on offer. Players will be able to equip two skills to there character at once with additional talents buffing there skills and abilities e.g. faster reload times.
Snowdrop Engine: The Division is being developed on the Snowdrop Engine, designed for next gen gameplay with a focus on graphics and detail. The engine will feature a full day and night cycle, volumetric lighting, dynamic global illumination, procedural destruction of objects and surfaces, an advanced particle system and a dynamic shader system allowing the environment to react to the weather. As mentioned a full day and night cycle will be in place, however the season will not change.
No official announcement has been made about the in game servers or total player cap but it is believed to be in the hundreds. Player vs player encounters (or PVP) will play a key role. The Division will also feature in games clans with no cap on the number of players that can join each clan, and fire teams of up to 4 players. Clans will be supported by a web based system similar to Destiny & GTA V.
Traditional cutscenes will not be used in the Division, instead being replaced by Echoes: Using data mined from surveillance cameras, discarded smartphones and the like, the player’s smartwatch is able to project 3D holograms of prior moments frozen in time. It’s in these moments that the player is free to walk around and explore amid the digital ghosts. Echoes are also used to locate hidden loot, or access to hidden passages, and they can also provide clues to solving some of our missing person missions. This decision was made as the game is highly focussed on co-op. New York has been split into different districts, with each district holding a base on operations. Once a base of operations has been acquired, players will be able to do trading there, socialise with other players, access an armoury and a medical clinic, as well as various other activities and features not yet announced.
The Divisions map covers New York with gameplay known to be available in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Just how big the map is, is still yet to be seen. Verticality and entering building will be a large part of the game. There will also be no vehicle gameplay, to match the setting.
Outside of the games setting, very minimal information has been announced about the story and how it will be integrated into gameplay. As stated we know Echoes will be the games take on cutscenes and we know of one core enemy known as the Cleaners. What we know about the Cleaners is that they are one of many factions in the game.
