14 DAY TRIAL // The team at Ubisoft in charge of The Division is announcing that the open beta that's running for the video game is the biggest for a new intellectual property on the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4, with more than 6.4 million players taking part in the action in order to see some of the core mechanics in action.
According to the company, most players were engaged for about 4 hours and 52 minutes on average and about one-third of that was spent exploring the Dark Zone where Player versus Player engagements are encouraged.
2.5 million players of The Division chose to go rogue, and more than 63 million items were sterilized and used by those who managed to call the helicopter and hold on until they were extracted with their new gear.
Magnus Jansen, a creative director, working on the title, states, "We want to thank the millions of people who joined in on The Division’s Open Beta. We hope everybody enjoyed playing, and we think the beta is going to help ensure a great launch for the game."
Ubisoft took into account many of the requests that closed beta participants made after they played The Division and introduced a wide range of tweaks for the open testing periods, and it's likely that now the team is working on a day-one patch for it.
Presumably, a full list of change notes will be posted once the experience is finally out, with the 6.4 million beta participants offering a solid install base if they all choose to get the full version.
The video game is set to arrive on March 8 on the PC, the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One.
The Division might offer inspiration for other Ubisoft video games
The closed and the open beta both generated high praise for the graphical quality delivered by the new Snowdrop engine, and it seems that the technology powering it might be used for new video games from the French publisher that are set to be announced in the coming months.
The company says that it is sharing as much tech between development teams as possible to increase efficiency and that the most important features of the engine are the way it handles open world structures, the weather, changes based on time of day and more.
The Dark Zone concept, which is integrated seamlessly with the rest of the game world, a take on modern world Manhattan, might also become something that's part of more Ubisoft video games.
The Division mixes role-playing game, shooter, and multiplayer elements and encourages players to work in groups with friends to take out powerful enemies and complete the story missions.
The Dark Zones are designed for those who love PvP action and offer access to the most interesting loot in the video game.
Ubisoft has said that it does not have plans to introduce any microtransactions to The Division but that it has an extensive range of downloadable content packs that will be revealed and introduced all through the year.