Are you ready, agent? If you’re the nice guy I met while playing Tom Clancy’s the Division 2, your answer would probably be “heck yes.” I admittedly, have never played this game series since I didn’t even know what it was until my co-worker told me it is a loot shooter. I also didn’t think I’d enjoy it since I dislike Third-Person Shooters and have always been a First-Person Shooter (FPS) fan. I was afraid I’d be terrible at the game and be criticized on a multiplayer platform for being so bad. The smooth gameplay, and a story mode that lets you finish it at your own pace, quickly changed my mind and allowed me to enjoy the Third-Person aspect. The game begins with your character customization and then springs you right into the action by having your character follow Agent Sanders to join her in combat against your enemies. I had no sense of what to do when I started playing. Once I started getting used to the game it put me right into the action teaching me about skills, leveling up, and started a quest line to take back the White House capital/monument. This was one downfall of the game, it is fast from the start and gets your adrenaline pumping but at the same time it didn’t do a good job introducing me to the series as a new player.
My experience was a stark contrast from what I normally see when I watch streamers play, I thought it was all multiplayer-based and a grind until you get good game where you constantly do Player versus Player (PVP) battles to level up. I was wrong, especially after I found out you don’t get to play in the “Dark Zone” until after finishing the campaign since the game starts with a single player mode. The Dark Zone is a Player versus Player landscape where you can get the rarest loot in the game off opposing players bodies.
The Division 2 does a great job of immersing players in the game with stunning visuals and a great post-apocalyptic atmosphere. They put a feeling of an open world map into the game but kept the map compact enough that you can understand where you’re going. I play on PC and the controls were easy to get used to. The guns take a bit of time to master and are realistic in that if you take your time shooting and learn to master the recoil patterns of them, you will understand how they work.
The one area of opportunity for The division 2 is helping new players understand what is going on. I was confused as to what I was doing from the start with the story line and began uncovering what to do as the game went on. I also got stuck on a couple missions because the maps location of where I needed to go and where I was didn’t synchronize well. If they fixed this glitch, I would give the story mode a 5 out of 5 review instead of my 4 out of 5. After discussing this with a friend further, he let me know the games storyline tends to reveal itself the deeper you get into the game, so I’m interested to dig further into the story mode now.
My favorite part of the Division 2 was the character progression throughout the game. You start out with a low tier gun and as you level up you loot stronger weapons with higher rates of fire, more bullet penetration, better accuracy, and more add-ons. The game felt like I turned the clock back six years to play “Batman Arkham Origins” on Xbox 360 again that I loved so much except now I have guns, a customizable character (seriously, I had a fireman’s helmet on my character), and loot items as I defeat enemies. It’s not quite the same as being Batman but it’s a close second! I plan on playing The Division 2 much more commonly now and you should give it a shot too. I am even considering a secondary character because it is so fun to customize characters in the game.
- Gameplay
- Visuals
- Audio
- Controls
- Story
- Replay Value