Incoming transition // Agent Atag is about to make an unnecessarily long status

Found this for £3 and had to see for myself whether Ubisoft games have finally merged into one homogenous blob. Looter shooters have never really been my thing, but the original game really grabbed my attention with the environment and overall premise.

The visuals and environmental design standout right from the get-go. It's probably my favourite thing about the franchise - I'm a sucker for apocalyptic settings! Many of the missions take place inside buildings and the interiors really do shine here - a lot of attention to detail. However, I do wish they'd lean heavily into survival elements given the apocalyptic setting, sort of a missed opportunity in my opinion especially given how much junk there is littered throughout the environments.

Spent a lot of time in photo mode and whilst it is nice to have, I do wish they'd add a few more features such as full 180 camera tilt for portrait shots and the ability to pose or hide your character.

The gameplay is satisfying, guns feel good most of the time although they could use a little more weight behind them. Something that I'm undecided on is the emphasis on action over tactics and stealth given that it's got the Tom Clancy stamp. There's no crouch button for example which just baffles me. There is a plethora of gadgets to utilise though, most of which involve you using them tactically. Taking cover and vaulting over objects is pretty smooth too.

I really like the UI and map elements, the way that these menus are incorporated into the game world fits nicely with the emphasis on tech that's apparent throughout the game. I also like the way that your waypoints sort of squiggle through the city streets to find the best path, oddly satisfying.

The story in this game is... Eh. Pretty cringey at times and to be honest I'm ignoring it. It's predominantly an online co-op game which can be great fun when you have a squad. I really like that you can call for backup at any time and agents playing solo etc will get distress calls that you can answer and join their game - it's quite immersive.

The score also deserves some praise, especially the combat music. A mixture of grungey metal guitar instrumental and thumbing dark house beats, it's really nice and fits the tone of the game.

The Division is one of the most impressive game worlds I've played in. It ranks at the top of the list for me in terms of immersion and pure fun.

And while the second game has an interesting setting to offer, nothing in gaming has surpassed the setting of the first game for me; snowy New York City, just a couple of months after the day that spelled doom for most of civilization rather than the typical games that take place years or decades after the cataclysmic event in question. Those games are 'post-apocalyptic', whereas it's more accurate to call The Division mid-apocalyptic. The world hasn't gone to shit completely just yet. The lights are still on, the water is running, and you get the idea that you could hear the bustling traffic of Manhattan mere days before your character enters the game. It's a spooky feeling.

Fast forward to The Division 2, which takes place six or so months after the events of the first game. Instead of Manhattan, we're in Washington, D.C. It's cool to run around see the trappings of Americanism that we've grown up in my country seeing, like the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, the White House, and so on.

It's not quite as memorable as TD1 though. And there's also this element where the designers went a little too hard with the post-fall of society feeling. There are collapsed freeways, unchecked overgrowth of shrubbery and foliage, and craters in the earth. That feels more like several years-to-decades after the fall of civilization, not months. And that besides, TD1 had tons of areas that never got old to explore, that told tons of stories with their environments and clutter. The as-of-yet completely unmatched Dark Zone of the first game is one of the most interesting areas in gaming, period. Walking through the quarantine gates for the first time and getting a palpable sense of total isolation, danger, and tragic catastrophe is unlike anything else.

But maybe it's not fair to hold the sequel to the predecessor. TD2 is supposed to feel different from TD1 and it does. We're not in the throes of a pandemic; it has come and gone. Now, we're living in the post-mortem of that plague. Now we seek to wrest control of the city back from various factions that have come to stake their claim in the vacuum left behind by the devastation of the virus.

It's a sensible premise but sometimes, the execution feels a little wonky. I can buy the True Sons, a flag-toting patriotic militia that endeavors to become the legitimate inheritor of the state after the state's apparent dissolution. But the Outcasts are a reach. I can't put my finger on what it is about them that makes me cock an eyebrow at them but it just feels too outlandish for a game like this, that seeks to be grounded in some semblance of realism, however much or little.

And then there's Black Tusk. Where the fuck did these guys come from and who the hell is funding them? They've got more tech and toys than the likes of Boeing, Boston Dynamics, and the U.S. military combined could ever dream of having access to. I don't think their gadgetry could be bankrolled by Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos if they joined forces. And with the world in absolute tatters following the outbreak of the Dollar Flu, that implies one of two things. 1) Black Tusk was somehow able to manufacture their entire arsenal despite the collapse of civilization, or 2) they manufactured all of it sometime leading up to the outbreak.

Both are way too much of a stretch for me to buy into. And because I can't buy into them, it's hard for me to take Black Tusk seriously. I was pretty let down when they turned out to be the endgame enemy.

And they still are right now. The story is doing some interesting but strange things. After players finish the base game, they learn more about the story through the seasonal content. And with this game being in its fifth year of development, there's been a lot of story. It's hard to even remember what the hell is going on. As far as I can remember, there are some in the True Sons that are teaming up with Black Tusk for something, and some of the True Sons don't like that...so those particular True Sons are working with The Division to undermine the efforts of the True Sons that working with Black Tusk. And behind Black Tusk is this mysterious woman, Natalia Sokolova or something like that. I don't know, the story has just completely lost me and at this point I'm just viewing it as what it most likely is: a reason for the game to keep going and nothing else.

It's a shame because the story of the first game was pretty interesting. I cared. I listened to all the collectible audio diaries, I paid attention to all the plot beats, I watched all the cutscenes. But with the second game, it just loses some of that for me in that the content just isn't quite as interesting. Oh, and they completely ruined The Dark Zone by splitting it up into three smaller areas in D.C. that make it pretty much impossible to navigate without coming in contact with another player. The entire thrill of TD1's Dark Zone was being able to run away and get lost in the giant zone rather than be forced to engage other players.

I've been playing TD2 since November of 2020 and have about 600 hours logged in, so many of these thoughts are not new. What IS new is the roadmap they revealed. I'm excited for it. I was ready to completely write off TD2 and just 'retire' from it altogether because of how content-less the last and current seasons felt. It was a glorified recycling of content with a few more story beats. The introduction of proficiency, expertise, and the Countdown game modes definitely breathed life back into the game, but there just wasn't enough in the seasons that followed to keep it fresh.

Roadmap for Year 5 looks very promising though. The Descent game mode is going to be fun to play around with, even if it's not groundbreaking - at this point, no one should be expecting to have their pants blown off by the teams working on this game, strained and inexperienced as they are; let's meet the developers where they're at, guys, we're lucky to even have more content coming as it is - incursions are coming back, more apparel events, a return to New York for a manhunt, and even new story DLC with new zones.

I regret to say I'm skeptical they can stick the landing with the new zones given their lack of experience but I'm hoping they've cut their teeth enough with the work they've done and will have done up to that point to nail it. I want them to succeed. And I'll be very interested to see what "Seasons 2.0" looks like and what the new endgame structure entails.

I was also ready to write off The Division Heartland, with the rumors that it was just a giant battle royale. I feel, however, that we've seen enough to show that's not the case. Sure, those elements will be there and there may even be downright battle royale modes, but it looks like they're going to offer a whole lot more than that. Which is awesome. I hate PvP for the most part and I dislike battle royale games even worse - I'll never, ever understand the appeal behind them - and I'm glad we're getting some of the old school survival stuff from the first game in there. I know there's a lot of cynicism at the game being free-to-play, with the idea that the game will be loaded with pay-to-win and other controversial microtransactions, but it's hard to see that being the case with a game like this. I could be completely wrong and am prepared to eat my words but I'm guessing we'll have the ability to buy cosmetics and some kind of season track pass similar to what TD2 has. But who knows.

Either way, I'm excited for The Division once again. I can't believe they just straight up decided not to work on a 3rd game with how ripe the setting and world of the game is; the potential it has is completely unrealized. But I'm back online every day doing Countdown and taking out Control Points for precious resources and having a blast. I'm sure I'll get sick of it again at some point but I'm realizing this is just one of those games that I'm probably always going to find a reason to come back to.