The Division Beta – It’s all fine

I was, and still am highly skeptical of Tom Clancy’s The Division. It’s got the potential, definitely. I like the futuristic aesthetic and the concept of it’s cooperative play, but ever since they showed the game at E3, it’s becoming hard to tell what’s really going to be a part of the final product, or what looks like a marketing mess.

• Played on PC via uPlay, the beta probably won’t be reflective of the final version.
• My PC Specs include GTX 770 with VRAM 2 GB, Intel i7-4790 CPU with 3.6 GHz, and 8 GB RAM
• UPDATE AS OF 1/31/16: A missing ending paragraph has been added.

The maps and levels in this game give a lot of cover to work around with, since you’ll die faster then I can sa-

It didn’t help how much of a mess it was to get into The Division’s beta. Those who were promised guaranteed access were not able to get their keys til a day later, thanks to a Nvidia Key Fest that actually was how I got my key. And the key I got was completely invalid, and contacting both Nvidia Support and Ubisoft Support was a mess. I was about ready to give up until Ubisoft Support told me I actually had the beta instated in my account a day ago and they didn’t say anything.

Wow.

Anyway, the actual game!

The Division is a online-multiplayer ARPG that’s also a cover-shooter. So kinda like Watch_Dogs. Unlike Watch_Dogs, the game is much more of a RPG, with looting and leveling a very important necessity to get the best gear in the game. The beta is basically a demo, locking you out of a lot of the map, missions, and even mechanics (which imo is far from a good idea).

The game’s menus are stylish and get to the point.

The campaign itself was not the best first-impression. It was very standard fare, go into the hospital, shoot the dudes, save the doctors. The big problem comes at the enemies being absolute bullet sponges; when the game wants to throw you a challenge, it’ll just throw enemies with a higher HP. It makes the fights a lot more boring, and I really hope this isn’t a major problem that’ll stick throughout the final game, some unique bosses with more then large HP and damage output could really be nice.

What I do have to say is that the gameplay itself is solid. The UI doesn’t get in the way of you while you’re playing, and the core mechanics (gunplay, equipping/using items, accessing inventory/skill trees) all work fine. It’s annoying that they lock you out of some mechanics like “Traits” and “Perks”, exploring those would really help give a better impression on how the RPG mechanics drastically determine combat.

Even though a small portion of the map is actually possible to traverse in the map, it feels like a very, very long trip to just walk down the streets with not much going on. You’ll want to bring some friends with you for a much more enjoyable experience.

Speaking of it’s multiplayer, the one remaining and large factor of the beta is the game’s Dark Zone PvP. And it is a absolute slam fest.

This session was real fun!

If you want to attain the best gear currently in the beta, you’re going to have to venture in the PvP mode Dark Zones. You’ll encounter NPC enemies to fight in addition to other players, and this is where it gets interesting;

With proximity voice/text chat (You can only hear people next to you), there’s a lot of potential for player chemistry. You may join up with others and be later betrayed by them, or you and your new pals can go across Manhattan, gathering new pals and looting gear along the way! Teaming up with strangers and looting together became such a fun and interesting experience.

WHO WANTS TO EXTRACT

This aspect of the game is the one I enjoyed the most. I won’t forget the time me and 19 other players banded together and basically surprised the living shit out of other players, only to welcome them to our party! I was concerned that a PvP mode where people can lose their loot when they die would make the playerbase kill each other in a flat-out second, but Dark Zones’ actively encourages both cooperation and often, betrayal. If you attack or significantly damage other players, you will be given a “Rogue” status, and those who hunt you down will get a hefty bounty for it. However, while this discourages most players from hunting randoms alone, it does reward rogues who get out of “rogue” status and run away with the loot.

Let’s roll out!

Dark Zones’ and it’s epic quest of loot would normally be tedious and often repetitive (The beta isn’t helping mainly because the Dark Zones map itself is very small), but with other players added in the mix, it becomes a very meaningful experience. If you ever play Dark Zones, do so with voice/text chat on, because cooperating/killing/betraying players are important aspects of this mode. Without it, playing alone makes you feel very alone.

Unfortunately, the beta also shows how broken the game sort-of is as now. Hopefully they’re at the point of crunching these bugs, but I’ve already encounter graphical issues where the screen starts giving seizure-inducing messes, and I’ve already fell out of the map in typical Ubisoft fashion.

Hopefully this doesn’t happen at launch, but I’m doubting it. If this stuff isn’t fixed by Day One, then I highly recommend picking up The Division after it’s launch. There’s only two more months before it’s current release, and if they don’t fix these issues in time, then well

I’d also hope for it to have better optimization on PC. I know it’s a current-gen game, but my computer (Which can handle games like The Witcher 3 and MGS V) suffered huge framerate drops at high settings. Thankfully, the game and it’s shadows still look OK, but I know very damn well that my computer can handle more then this.

So overall, what do I think of The Division? Not too shabby, I’d totally be down with getting this game in the future. But probably not at launch, as evidenced by the video above.

I’d like to give a huge shoutout to Silentsteel102, one of my crewmates during the Dark Zone session I played! Thank you so much for for making Dark Zones fun, and organizing such a great team to play with. Maybe a few months after the game comes out, we can play together, huh? 😉

– MeltingComet