The Division 2, Devil May Cry 5, The Occupation & more games reviewed!
A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF HOW TO ABSOLUTELY NAIL A SEQUEL. $79 | PC, PS4, Xbox One | tomclancy-thedivision.ubisoft.com
The Division 2 ON THE SURFACE, The Division 2 is more of what came before. It’s a solid third-person shooter, focused around co-op shootouts with three different factions (and later, a fourth) and developing skills, abilities, and a loadout that compliments your play style. But it’s the fact that you constantly feel like you’re progressing rather than just ticking things off a list that makes Ubisoft’s latest open-world such a delight to explore and fight through. The world reacts to your action and develops accordingly; everything you collect has a purpose; the loot cycle is rewarding and even offers silly apparel options and dyes. There’s so much to do here that you’ll be playing for hundreds of hours before you’ve done it all. And by that time the Division 2 roadmap will already be underway. The Division 2 is putting other looter shooters to shame with just how established it is at launch.
Your overall objective is to take back Washington D.C., your latest playground, from three factions and help out the citizens that are left. Technically, it’s a simple task, but that involves taking back Control Points, wiping out enemy strongholds, and slowly amassing weapons and gear that makes you the perfect Division agent. The skills are particularly rewarding, as they’re not really skills but gadgets to use in combat. They range from a rolling seeker mine and a drone that you can unleash on unsuspecting enemies, to a ballistics shield or something called a hive, which basically emits lots of tiny robot bees that attack your foes with intense precision. And deadly stingers. Each of the eight skills available has at least three versions to unlock too, all of which change how each of them fundamentally work. For example, the turret may seem straightforward, but it can either be equipped with any of the following: a traditional 360-degree spinning machine gun; an incendiary tank that it fires in a cone for area-of-effect damage; an explosive artillery launcher; or a longrange semi-automatic sniper rifle.
Of course, there’s also the PvP Dark Zone to explore, and this time there are three of them. Thankfully as soon as you step into them, all stats get normalised, which makes things a little less daunting. It’s still extreme of course – the AI ain’t got nothing on your fellow players – and I fear how insane it’ll be when players get better and better, but it’s a major change of pace from the main area of DC, and there’s always the lure of better loot.
In a world where so few games of its type launch so successfully, there’s plenty to praise about Ubisoft’s latest foray, and we can’t wait to see what else its Washington has in store for us.
THAT YOU’LL BE PLAYING FOR HUNDREDS OF HOURS BEFORE YOU’VE DONE IT ALL. AND BY THAT TIME THE DIVISION 2 ROADMAP WILL ALREADY BE UNDERWAY. THE DIVISION 2 IS PUTTING OTHER LOOTER SHOOTERS TO SHAME WITH JUST HOW ESTABLISHED IT IS AT LAUNCH.