Ponytails, Cars & Sausages: Eight Thoughts About The Division

Did you know that The Division is out today? Of those who’ve bought it for launch, some will have got it in the post early and have been playing since the servers went live yesterday afternoon, others have had to wait for digital purchases to unlock at midnight, and then there’s everyone else struggling with the commute home before they can turn their consoles on and play.

Whether you’ve bought it or not, here’s eight points that range from mildly interesting observations and thoughts to the completely and utterly banal.

Play The Division like it’s 2013 [A teensy bit spoilery!]

Do you remember the original 2013 E3 reveal, and its promising trek through Brooklyn? It finished with the small team of agents emerging from a police station, looking across the river to Manhattan and saying something like, “we’re going there next.” You get to follow in their footsteps in The Division’s prologue and training area.

After completing a few early side missions within this small slice of Brooklyn, the first full story mission takes place within that same police station before taking you across to Manhattan Island with a cutscene that dovetails neatly with what we saw at the start of the beta.

Asian women can’t have ponytails

It’s a nice touch that, as your character pulls back their hoodie and looks at their reflection in a police car window, their features are randomised from the pool of available options before letting you loose to create your own character.

However, the character customisation in The Division is actually fairly limited. There’s only eight faces to choose from for each gender, and each ethnicity has their own set of five haircuts. That means that if you want to play as an Asian female agent, you don’t get to have a ponytail.

Thankfully there’s a lot more variety and cosmetic possibilities with your clothing, but what gives, Ubisoft Massive? I wanted a ponytail!

I’d also settle for being able to have a luridly colourful mohawk.

Get looting like it’s the last day of the London Riots

It almost feels incongruous to call this a “shooter looter”, especially when talking about government agents, but that’s essentially what The Division is. Even before you hit level 30 and the end game that hopes to keep you coming back day in, day out, you get to see the churn for newer and better gear up close.

Early on, there’s little need to buy any gear from the vendors that yell at you in your Base of Operations or in safe houses, as mission ending rewards and drops from the rioters and early encounters with the flamethrower wielding Cleaners will give you better kit quite regularly. There’s a steady stream of new things to inspect and equip if it’s better.

Come level 30 and it seems that The Division will turn toward the meta of finding the armour that has stats, buffs and special abilities that suit your play style. Thankfully, if you find yourself with an awesome, high level set of knee pads that don’t quite fit your build, you can head to a workbench in your base of operations and re-roll its stats.

And just remember, green is better than white, blue is better than green, purple beats blue, and yellow is the best stuff of all.

Shut that door

You’re letting all the heat out.

Where are the other agents?

Outside of the Dark Zone, safe houses and your own party, the streets of Manhattan are essentially devoid of other Division agents. Wasn’t this some huge network of sleeper agents that was meant to go active and try to restore order? Where are all of the first wave of agents, then?

I wonder if that might be part of what the story focuses on? Make sure to listen to the radios in safe houses and pick up audio logs and phones when ISAC – your fancy pants augmented reality system – highlights them for you, to get some of the bigger picture.

The Division is a total sausage fest

Perhaps the first wave of agents was made up entirely of women, because from what I’ve seen, the second wave that we’re all a part of is over 95% male.

Enter the Dark Zone

The Dark Zone was easily the best part of the beta testing phases that The Division went through. They don’t overtly pit agent versus agent, but give you the opportunity to go rogue, if you so choose.

So there are small pockets of the game’s various AI factions, with suitably high levels and a chance of dropping some really nifty new gear. It’s getting that gear out of the Dark Zone that is The Division’s signature trick, as you head to an extraction point, send a flare up into the sky and wait nervously for it to arrive, never being sure if the other agents that descend upon you are happy to wait and extract or want to steal your loot for themselves.

The recommended level for the Dark Zone in the full game is a little higher than it was in the beta, though. It starts off at level 10, with zones going all the way up to level 30.

Incursions and the DLC Season Pass

We’ve not finished the game’s main content by a long shot, but it’s entirely possible that the best co-op content is yet to come. There’s plenty of main story missions to play through and the world is stuffed with side missions, but the game’s MMO raid-like incursions aren’t there at launch. An incursion is being added to the game in April and another in May, before the focus shifts to the paid season pass – the first two packs of this are one month timed exclusive for Xbox One, but the third piece will arrive simultaneously for all platforms.

Incursions will be when the game’s able to take the gloves off and really force you to play with a team and work together with complimentary abilities. They’ll also be one route to finding some of the game’s best gear and loot, if you’d rather not brave the Dark Zones.

Since servers only went live yesterday, we’ve only had a small amount of time to play The Division so far. If you’re waiting on more impressions and reviews, we’ll be back with those later in the week, but if you’re already playing, we hope you’re having a fantastic time.