14 DAY TRIAL // The development team at Ubisoft that's currently putting the finishing touches on the upcoming The Division is ready to confirm that at least one of the areas featured in the first promo videos for the title will not be available when the game launched on March 8 and will be introduced in future updates.
Magnus Jansen, the creative director, working on the mix of third-person shooter and MMO, tells The Examiner that the demands of the one-to-one recreation process is required to make the game feel realistic and interesting.
He adds, "We are going with Mid-town Manhattan. It is because of the 1-to-1 re-creation and the way the pandemic has. Basically, everything has been hit and there are no more resources because everyone tried to get out. There is no more gasoline in the cars, there is no traffic, you’re on foot. With the level of detail we have, doing Mid-town Manhattan is a huge open-world experience and more than enough to sink your teeth into. It is a very sizeable open-world game."
Brooklyn has also been shown as being part of the world of the game, which probably means that Ubisoft will open up new areas of New York when gamers explore all the content associated with the initial environments.
The company has said that it wants to deliver free updates once the game is out but has not expanded on their nature or the frequency with which they will arrive.
According to the development team, there are no plans to introduce microtransactions for The Division, which is a sign that a more traditional model will be used for DLC.
Gamers who pay for it will be able to explore new areas, which might grow to include all of New York over time, and presumably use more gear and abilities.
Gamers should be ready to both cooperate and compete
The Division takes place in a world where a plague spreads during the Black Friday and effectively leads to the shutdown of the United States government, with a secret group of operatives now activated to restore order.
Gamers will have to explore Manhattan, take out enemies and solve a variety of challenges with groups of other players, but they can also choose to fight them in the Dark Zone area, which offers access to some hard missions and exclusive loot.
The Division does not have a classic class structure because the development team wants each player to decide what role he is comfortable with while also having the option to switch to another when the situation around him demands it.
The Division will be offered on the PC, the Xbox One from Microsoft and the PlayStation 4 from Sony.
A beta stage will take place starting on January 28, designed to evaluate the infrastructure that support the mix of shooter and MMO while also showing gamers some of the core features.
Feedback from players is valuable, but changes based on it will probably only be made once The Division is out, via some of the planned free updates.