Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 – First Impressions

It’s day one of the closed beta for Tom Clancy’s The Division 2, and I spent a few hours this afternoon, shooting my way around downtown Washington DC.

Well, you know what they say about first impressions, and if I was skeptical before, I may indeed have been converted. In fact, Ubisoft may have just bagged themselves another pre-order. It was that kind of experience for me with Tom Clancy’s The Division 2.

I never played the first Division game, a decision I now regret. Turns out, The Division is the type of game one needs to satisfy a very particular urge. The urge to roam around a desolate city, grabbing cover and engaging nameless bad guys with assault rifles and grenades. Keeping my head down while changing mags, lobbing grenades while lining up my next headshot. This is pure unadulterated cover and manoeuvre gunplay.

Beta get in

The environments are tragic and beautiful, a fallen empire, left to rot, while the dregs of humanity fight over what remains. The cityscape is segmented up into areas based on player level. For the beta, the level cap is 11, with a special level 30 event scheduled for the weekend. You can read more about that here.

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Missions come in via your base, The White House, of all places, and there are several outposts dotted around the city. The streets are littered with the decay of civilisation, with packs of heavily armed “Hyenas” preying on the weak. These baddies operate in small groups, perfect to ambush, or larger encounters, which end up in protracted firefights. If the rate of weapon pickups in the beta continues in the full release, there will be a massive arsenal available. All the better to find your favourite shooter and stick with it.

Beta get out

Now don’t get me wrong. Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 will not revolutionize cover-based shooters, as the basic mechanics remain the same in this new iteration. What it will do, is scratch that itch you have to unload a clip of high-velocity ammunition into a bad guy hiding behind a park bench. You know, the same urges we all get right? … Right!?

The beta for Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 runs until Sunday the 11th of February and is still available at the games official website The Division 2.

Here we have some footage of my absolutely flawless combat skills. Slick drills, quick kills!!