Ubisoft has turned Tom Clancy's The Division into an Xbox and PC game that's worth your time. Here's how.
Tom Clancy's The Division has been a game defined by failures since its 2016 launch. Though it had a phenomenal opening week, breaking Destiny's record for the best-selling new franchise, it didn't take long for the title's flaws to rear their ugly heads. Between the unbalanced multiplayer, terrible performance, rampant hacker issues, and general lack of content, The Division faced one problem after another. People began to abandon the game only a few months after release, and this urban dystopian shooter role-playing game (RPG) became a ghost town.
Fast forward to the beginning of 2018, and the game now looks much different then it did. The dedicated post-launch support Ubisoft has given this game worked some magic, and while nothing excuses the poor entrance it made into the gaming scene two years ago, The Division is definitely worth checking out now.
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Fixing what's broken
Arguably the worst aspect of The Division at launch was the shocking amount of bugs, glitches, and exploits that made the game unplayable. There's nothing worse than a game that doesn't work, and The Division was a terrible offender.
Fortunately, the developers stuck with their project and patched up almost everything wrong with its performance. The game runs smoothly, crashes to desktop or dashboard are non-existent, and the plethora of visual and audio glitches that once plagued The Division are a thing of the past. Anti-cheat systems have been implemented in order to tackle the waves of cheaters, as well.
Quality of life
In addition to fixing up the performance issues, The Division's developers have also made several changes to balance the game and make the overall experience better, both in player-versus-enemy (PvE) and player-versus-player (PvP) scenarios.
In PvE, enemy AI has been tweaked in order to retain the challenge that The Division is known for, while also making some encounters fairer and not overly difficult. In addition, the issue of missions in the game not giving out the rewards promised to players has been resolved.
For PvP, players have to manually select whether they want to go rogue and turn on other agents before being able to do damage. This is a beneficial change, as before a single accidental shot on a friendly agent would turn you into an enemy. On top of this, The Division's weapons, armor, and skills received specific balancing in order to make PvP feel more separate than PvE.
New ways to play
With The Division's latest patch, three brand new types of free content have been implemented into the game. The first of which is a brand new area on the map, called West Side Piers. This location boasts a new dynamic enemy spawning system, a new safehouse social hub, and tons of new missions and commendations to complete.
Secondly, there's a new PvP mode called Skirmish, which is similar to arena shooters like Halo or Destiny. Two teams of four players each battle with each other to rack up the highest kill count. Performing well in the mode increases your PvP rank, and the PvP rank itself has received a higher level cap to compensate for this.
Lastly, there's also a new PvE mode called Resistance, in which a small group of players team up to battle hordes of enemy factions that ally with each other to take them down. Resistance can be played in three different arenas found in the West Side Piers area, and each one is unique and different, making players strategize differently for each.
Conclusion on the state of Tom Clancy's The Divison for Xbox
Though The Division will likely never repair all the damage done by its botched launch, the game has become a solid title thanks to the support it was given by the developers. Whether you're thinking of coming back to the game or considering picking it up, The Division is definitely worth your time in 2018.
What do you think of The Division? Let us know down below.
The game is available for $49.99.