A long-awaited comeback of The Division is here, stronger than ever, and promising to improve what gamers so emotionally criticized in the past iteration. Massive Entertainment managed to improve on core gameplay aspects such as the PVE and looting, with the game feeling more fleshed out than its previous counterpart. However, it still has bugs and glitches that can ruin immersion sometimes. Let’s see how the game fares.
Solid Teamplay
Washington D.C is the location of this new iteration and provides the perfect battleground for the main action of The Division 2 as it allows for new and exciting setting for the apocalyptical story to develop.
The Division 2 PVP has shifted into a more tactical design which encourages team play and coordination, a positive for those who want to play the game besides a team of friends. However, this focus manages to increase the difficulty of the PVP aspect for the exclusive solo players, as they will find it much more challenging to engage coordinate teams of two or three players.
In the PVE aspect of Division 2 this team play becomes a double-edged sword, as the difficulty of the missions is determined by the quantity of the friends you have on your party, but in an almost ridiculous way. Solo and Duo play are manageable, enemies fall quickly, and the missions have good enough pacing, but with a party of three or four the missions scale to an insane amount, and the enemies become huge bullet sponges which were an aspect heavily criticized in the last game.
The great Endgame
Reaching maximum level in The Division 2 activates the Endgame mechanic which essentially revamps the game as a new faction – The Black Tusk – invades the Washington D.C map, bringing with it more difficult and varied enemies. All the existing content is affected by this and can be replayed differently.
All this new content also brings end game gear, which manages to improve on the gear system that The Division had, bringing much more diversity and variety allowing players to invest time in developing their different unique build.
One aspect that counteracts the time investment in developing builds and more advanced gear is the “normalization” of said aspects in PVP – design to balance it out – that removes the gap between gear sets entirely, reducing the benefit of investing time and resources in an optimized build. This balancing aspect is kind of controversial within the game’s community, as some find it reduces player investment in build crafting and grinding, and others a necessary mesure to combat the RNG, or luck, of the gear system.
