Photo Courtesy of Tribune News Service – In “The Division,” players are tasked with restoring order to Manhattan after a viral outbreak wipes out the majority of denizens and dangerous factions make a power play for city control.

“Tom Clancy’s The Division”—From Ubisoft
Xbox One, Playstation 4, PC

9 out of 10

By Jack McAuslan ’16
THE ROUNDUP

About two years ago, around the same time as the release of the new generation of consoles, we were teased with a trailer for a new “Tom Clancy” series game called “The Division.”  

In the gameplay we saw online players meeting up with each other to complete a mission and some very interesting gameplay mechanics.  

Excitement for the game quickly rose and it left everyone waiting for its release.  

After years of development and anticipation for this new open-world style “Tom Clancy” game, “The Division” is finally here.

In a near-future New York City, a disease quickly spreads through the community via dollar bills.

Millions of people die because of this new-plague, and the city soon falls into post apocalyptic chaos.

The U.S. government deploys the player as a highly trained soldier who is part of a group called The Division, and your task is to take back New York City from the malicious groups of criminals who have gained control over it.

“The Division” does a great job of not wasting time at the beginning of the game with vague and boring tutorial missions.

Instead, you are dropped right into the action while teaching the basics but advancing you through the story simultaneously.

As your character levels up, so do the enemies around you, making the game both challenging and rewarding at all times.

In “The Division,” there are playable story missions that advance your medical, tech and defensive skills that will give you new perks such as healing kits, shields and damage buffs for your teammates.

These missions are also incorporated directly into the landscape of the game.

There are no loading screens for these missions unless you decide to fast travel directly to the mission.

They are structured very similarly to strikes in Bungie’s “Destiny.”  The only real differences are the fact that there are no loading screens in “The Division” and you also never fight massive aliens with lasers and jet packs like in “Destiny.”

At the end of every mission there are named bosses who always drop very valuable loot such as weapons, weapon mods or armor.

Perhaps the best part of “The Division” is something called The Dark Zone.

The Dark Zone is a high level area in the very middle of the map that is separated from the rest of the city by checkpoints, seemingly designed to keep low level players away from the danger inside.

In The Dark Zone, players will encounter very high level enemies, named bosses, and other agents who may or may not be rogue.

A rogue agent is a player who killed another player within The Dark Zone and is now essentially an enemy of every other player.

This rogue effect lasts for just over one minute, but can be reset by killing more agents.

If there’s one thing against “The Division” it’s that the gameplay gets repetitive after a while, but this should be solved by upcoming free and paid downloadable content.

“Tom Clancy’s The Division” had huge expectations to live up to and it at least met those expectations with amazing multiplayer gameplay and an interesting story to get behind.