Tom Clancy’s The Division is Ubisoft’s creation in order to compete with other games that are trendy right now, for example, Destiny, with its revolutionary style of First Person Shooter (FPS) and role-playing. Ubisoft wants to bring its best shot as an FPS force in its own right.
With The Division, players find themselves in a post-pandemic New York after a mysterious virus has swept through the city and the rest of the country, prompting the activation of a secret government agency known as The Division.
This agency’s special-ops forces have been quietly embedded amid the general population throughout the country for just this kind of emergency. Now, like superheroes in disguise, they are being called into action to restore order in Manhattan, not an easy task indeed.
Since the outbreak, America has experienced a complete breakdown. Prison gangs and other dangerous factions are taking control, and crazy hoodlums are roaming the streets unchecked.
Players will have the chance to create their own Division agent that will fight against lawlessness and attempt to reveal the responsible behind the pandemic.
The Division has a lot to offer
Talking about gameplay, The Division closely resembles Gears of War. It’s a third-person shooter with a focus on methodical combat. In firefights, players must take cover and outmaneuver thugs lurking on the streets by accessing a wide variety of skills, everything from offensive skills and supporting ones.
The Division offers a robust leveling and progression system, too. The developer has tied new abilities to upgrades available at the Division’s Manhattan operating base, formerly a New York Post Office. Successful side missions build credits by which players can access improvements and explore intricate new worlds, one of The Division’s great strengths.
Ubisoft’s version of New York is as dense as the real city but with the shattered storefronts and subway shantytowns created by the pandemic. Agents may find themselves plumbing the depths of the city’s sewer system to rescue hostages, or leaping across uneven rooftops to reactivate an antenna.
Clues are buried in cell phones, files and other items the agents come across. There’s also a book titled New York Collapse, which gives a street-level view of the unfolding destruction, as well as hidden messages and secret codes.
While players attempt to solve these puzzles, they also create their own stories of narrow escapes from death. A lot of the unpredictable action occurs in the Dark Zone, a no man’s land where both loot and the most savage enemies can be found, and where players can also kill one another.
To gain access to this zone, they first must terminate powerful enemies and then find their way to extraction areas, where helicopters pick up and cleanse items contaminated with contagion. Each encounter in the Dark Zone heightens the game’s Dark Souls-type tension, as some agents go rogue and steal the gear of others, which, in turn, makes ventures into this area truly exciting.
With The Division, Ubisoft’s developers improve upon the formula created by Bungie and push the shooter to an impressive new level.
Source: Sentinel Source