Building off of a trailer released earlier this week, the developers of The Division delivered an impressive livestream yesterday that shows that the game’s free 1.8 spring patch may be the best for players who are into combat in the game’s open world. Some changes to how combat unfolds were especially encouraging.
The full livestream is viewable below, with the tour of the update’s new West Side Piers pair of zones starting at 11:54.
The new area is an extension of the game’s existing map, but it functions under a different ruleset. As demonstrated in the stream, players are regularly being alerted to events happening in the new zones. The events seem to involve some basic actions, such as needing to clear out enemies from a specific area or defend a landmark, but the idea is that players will keep getting alerts that pull them to new skirmishes across the zones.
As players run through the West Side Piers sectors, enemies will spawn dynamically, with 1.8’s developers suggesting on the stream that players will at times feel like the AI is trying to gank them. During the stream, for example, an enemy popped up from the roof of a truck, shooting down at the players.
The new system underpinning West Side Piers also doles out new assignments to players. Examples given during the stream involved things such as killing 15 enemies with a sidearm or killing 20 enemies within 10m. These would be like daily assignments, the developers said, but will generate every 15-20 minutes.
Completing these actions and assignments will dole out Division Tech, a resource previously accessible in the game’s treacherous quasi-PvP Dark Zone area. The developers say it will be used to upgrade player’s gear in some way, making all of these loops worth it for players who want to get some sort of statistical improvement. If you’re less into stats and more into story, they’re promising that a fresh batch of audio logs will in some way expand the game’s story.
The new zone and its systems are being developed by Red Storm, the US-based Tom Clancy game studio that’s worked on other aspects of The Division. Their artists have done an admirable job, as the stream showcases several impressive-looking points of interest, including a car wash, a nightclub (with aquarium floor), a mass grave site and the massive USS Intrepid aircraft carrier.
A little hard to see in a cap from the stream, but the fish under the nightclub floor do swim.
It sounds like the Intrepid will mostly be used for 1.8’s horde mode, which is called Resistance. That mode wasn’t shown in the stream, but the developers did say that it will be solo-able if players desire.
The new patch is also set to add a 4v4 multiplayer mode called Skirmish, and some sort of change to the game’s promising but moribund Underground expansion. Details on that and anything else in 1.8 will likely be shown in future Division streams. They run at 1AM AEST on the game’s Twitch channel every Friday.
There’s no release date yet for the 1.8 patch. The developers are still making it and still working out some lingering issues with the recently-issued 1.7.
Ubisoft opted to not release paid expansions for The Division in 2017, but the game’s free year two content has gradually improved the game. The Division may be getting better, but as Kotaku commenter mleejrjr put it earlier this week, its next problem isn’t itself:
Comments
5 responses to “The Division’s Next Patch Finally Expands The Map For PvE Players”
As a long term player of both games it is my opinion that The Division is both technically and content wise superior to Destiny. I could almost go as far as calling Bungie lazy in comparison to outgoing hard work done with The Division.
I will be playing both Destiny 2 and The Division (and would he happy to pre-order Division 2 if it was announced) in the near future so time will tell how The Division (1) stacks up against Destiny 2.
Bungie will need to go a long way to create atmosphere and environments that can match that of The Division, though some of it may be related to my personal preferences and not artistic direction. In the end it is worth noting that I remain disappointed that The Division is not getting a wider recognition… it deserves it.
Last but not least, The Division is a perfect example on how one should not abandon their products after launch despite them being in second place in terms of popularity. Let that be a lesson to what remains of BioWare…
Wow…
Nope, Division isn’t close to Destiny at all. It’s a great game and I’ve put nearly 20 days into it, but it doesn’t have a shadow on Destiny.
For months after release the loot in Division was scarce, there about 4 missions that dropped endgame loot, the metas were all out of whack, 1/4 of the map was PvP enabled, and that’s where most of the good loot was…so you had to venture into a place where you could be ganked easily while trying to fight off AI to get your loot out, and have it stolen by other players.
The DLC for Division has been lackluster to put it nicely. Underground has no players now, Survival is interesting but has a massive curve and Last Stand is more PvP in a game where the gear is even more important than Destiny PvP and if you don’t play the Meta, you won’t get anywhere.
It’s taken a year for it get to a place that is somewhat close to Destiny in terms of replayability and content…and Destiny even had more, and better content after a Year than Division has. Destiny wasn’t without its problems and I hope Bungie learned from them, but it was always superior to Division.
Division had so much potential, but Massive got sucked in by hugs and systems that were just not up to scratch once you hit Endgame.
Just from the Beta and EDZ gameplay videos, Destiny 2 will wipe the floor with The Division.
I agree for the most part. Sure, the DZ was not as fun after a while, but it is what it is and they keep adding stuff, even for non-season-pass holders.
I just wish there was a bit more story expansion, rather than horde mode, but I’ll see how it plays first before making a real comment.
I tried getting back into this a few weeks back, after not having played it much since launch. I found it difficult to get into a lot of the new game modes as they were all locked behind gear requirements, and the queues for low-level instances were endless. Was pretty hyped about jumping back in to a plethora of new content but they could relax a bit to make it easier for players who aren’t already well-established in the world…
Check out the world tiers: they scale from 1 to 5 in difficulty. It may help a little getting to level 30 and then working on gearing to ilvl 256.