In a lot of ways, The Division is what I hoped Destiny would be back in 2014. After having now logged many hours into Ubisoft’s third-person shooter/RPG hybrid, I’m more than a little surprised that the game has thus far managed to exceed my expectations of it, with me having previously been practically convinced that it would stand to disappoint those who had been eagerly anticipating its release since its E3 2013 unveiling.
After playing and enjoying its closed beta, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that it was going to replicate many of the mistakes of Bungie’s flawed attempt at introducing MMO features to an audience of console shooter fans, with me also having previously been besotted with Destiny‘s beta and naively convincing myself that it was going to be my favorite multiplayer FPS since Halo 2. The foundations were there, from its fine-tuned shooting through to its gorgeous alien worlds, but the end product failed to appeal to me for a variety of a reasons.
But while The Division shares many of Destiny‘s characteristics, it thankfully manages to avoid most of its missteps, becoming arguably the perfect game for those who were disappointed by Bungie’s sci-fi shooter. Here’s why:
Satisfying loot drops
Vanilla Destiny proved to be addictive in the way that most freemium mobile games are addictive, with it sinking its teeth into players by virtue of a wholly unfair upgrade system that prioritized mind-numbing repetition over actual enjoyment. This was made glaringly apparent when players began to spend each of their play sessions camping front of a “loot cave,” a portion of the map in which enemies constantly respawned thus providing frequent loot drops, in order to obtain better gear because it was more consistent than the items the game provided for completing a mission.
The Division has no such issue, with it providing plentiful amounts of quality loot drops that are proportionate to the difficulty level of the mission you’ve completed, with high-level equipment also littered throughout the game by way of enemy drops and crates. Whereas vanilla Destiny more or less required you to hunt out places in its world that had a higher likelihood of dropping better gear, The Division simply rewards you with this stuff as you go about completing your missions. It’s the way a game like this should work, and rather than forcing players to repeat tasks over and over again in order to upgrade their character, it completely overlooks grinding in favor of swift, satisfying progression.
A PvP mode that doesn’t overreach
When we first got our hands on Destiny‘s PvP mode, we were left asking one question: how could a game that borrowed so liberally from the MMO genre manage to integrate these features into what was essentially a traditional FPS multiplayer component? Unfortunately, we now know that the answer to this question was “it couldn’t.”
While venturing into the Crucible was initially thrilling, with it exhibiting the satisfying shooting and tight map design we’ve come to expect from Bungie, as players progressed through its PvE component balancing issues became more and more prevalent, until it eventually became an unsightly mess. With each new update put out by Bungie the Crucible would become more frustrating to venture into, with it now being a turgid mess dominated by the same handful of weapons and special abilities.
On the other hand, The Division doesn’t feature a traditional PvP mode, instead introducing its unique Dark Zone in which players are tasked with venturing into a hostile open-world to hunt for more valuable loot, with player-killing being an option but in no way essential. While it’s certainly a more minimalist offering than what was initially put out by Destiny, it’s far more preferable to have a mode that should prove to be consistent than one which swiftly becomes undone by the updates releases for the rest of the game. If The Division does eventually release a traditional online versus mode, then at least Ubisoft will have had some time to work out how to balance it, rather than overreaching and throwing themselves into the deep end as Bungie did.
A full open-world environment
The Division‘s New York looks fantastic. Essentially the star of the show, while the game’s story is less than thrilling, you’ll be driven along by an urge to make progress throughout its extensive and staggeringly detailed map. While Destiny featured a number of open-world environments located on different planets, each boasting the awe-inspiring skyboxes we’ve come to expect from Bungie and featuring geographical differences alongside varied level design that isn’t as present in The Division, actually getting from A to B was far more mind-numbing than it should’ve been.
Each time you ventured from one of Destiny‘s hubs such as The Tower and into a mission, you’d be plonked in the same place on the map and required to make the same journey to the same area, with the odd deviations to this formula indicating that you were taking part in a new quest and not repeating the quest you had just completed. Some would argue that this is partially what made Destiny so popular; that its unabashed repetitiveness allowed it to drill itself into your brain without you even realizing it. For many this was the case, but The Division‘s method of handling its mission layout is far more effective, with you able to freely explore New York as you would any other open-world, and you crucially being allowed to join matchmaking sessions for each major storyline mission within the game world itself.
There’s also the added bonus that despite The Division taking place within a tried-and-tested post-apocalyptic setting, its world doesn’t feel sterile and lifeless like that of Destiny‘s. While it’s not exactly bustling with activity, the maze-like slew of abandoned vehicles, distraught, homeless civilians and neat little visual touches such as windows shattering and tiles cracking as a result of your gunfire make it feel real, and far more substantial than just a pretty terrain for you to navigate before you go and shoot some aliens.
A complete experience from day one
There are many who were pleased with Destiny from the get-go. However, those such as myself who were disappointed by the underwhelming package they were presented with on launch day, weren’t particularly made to feel any better by the promise of future content that would flesh out the game and improve the multitude of qualms we had with the base game. The game’s first two expansions, A House of Wolves and The Dark Below, added more stuff to do in the game with varying degrees of success, but by the time The Taken King rolled around with its hefty price tag for day one players of the game, many had given up on throwing more money at the game in order to have it finally match their expectations.
On the other hand, The Division is a solid experience from day one. While its cover-based shooting may not appeal to everyone, and it could certainly do with some more variety in terms of its mission structure, what is there is an engrossing and full experience that hasn’t left me longing for updates that will finally make me feel as though my initial investment has been justified. If the game were to receive no future DLC, the core game wouldn’t feel insubstantial as a result. In this day and age, that’s unfortunately a massive compliment.
So while you may well have enjoyed Destiny, and I’m happy for you if you did, for those of us who were left more than a little disappointed by what we had previously believed would be Bungie’s magnum opus, The Division efficiently fills that gap and then some. Bravo, Ubisoft – you may have made just produced one of our favorite online shooters of the past decade.
