REVIEW

Tom Clancy’s The Division Review

by Dominic Coles, March 22nd, 2016

The Tom Clancy franchise has been doing well recently with Rainbow Six Siege last year garnering a great reception amongst critics and players alike. The latest game to bear his name introduces a new IP to the series in the form of The Division, in which a group of sleeper agents are tasked with the recovery of New York city. Is the game outstanding enough to gain the same praise as other titles in the franchise? Or is it going to be overshadowed by its competitors?

The set-up is simple; New York has become the victim of an epidemic after the spread of the “Dollar Bill” virus. Planted on Black Friday, the virus spread to everyone in the city causing most of the population to fall incredibly ill and others to die. Three rival factions then stood up to try and take hold of the city for their own ideals. These factions consist of the Rikers, a militarized task force who are well-equipped and trained for any battle, The Cleaners who spread fires to clean the virus but have fallen into a group of pyromaniacs, using the flames to kill anything and anyone in sight and lastly the Rioters who are gun wielding looters trying to take advantage of the fallout by capitalising on money, food and other vital supplies. The Division is then called in to quell these uprisings and to restore New York to the best of their abilities.

This story is crafted to capitalise on realism whilst the gameplay, with its unrealistic gun damage, parts itself from the realism entirely. This creates a strange mould and it makes things confusing as you progress. It allows the game to have humour inside of the serious quest lines and plot developments, relieving the tension in what would be a very dark and dreary experience otherwise. But that takes away from the serious impact of the virus and how tragic this event has been for the citizens of this city. The plot progresses at a snails pace with the missions only extending the problems further, leading to a monotonous story, lacking in impact. You will go out and complete major story quests only to be rewarded with a piece of Intel on the virus or a shred of CCTV footage showing people dying. This helps make the world feel more immersive but does not help drive the overall narrative. It felt as if the story was being held back a lot more than it should have been with a lack of character driven cut-scenes to flesh it out. Speaking of characters, none of them are memorable and are very easy to throw away. Even the side quest characters don’t hold any merits and just have a slightly different personality in comparison to the last.

You have a Base of Operations consisting of three wings, Medical, Tech and Security to manage and upgrade; each wing provides you with reward you with abilities, perks and passive improvements as you upgrade them. The main quest line is scattered between missions focused around these three wings as you will be balancing out refurbishing the city with researching the virus and keeping the factions under control. As you explore the many districts of New York you will find other smaller safe houses with NPC’s that will allocate you side quests in that area, as well as a map that will show any events that are undergoing which can reward you with points for the appropriate wings. Everything is constructed around reward for exploration, as the more you commit to the adventure the more loot and overall power you will receive in the long run which is rewarding. These safe houses are fun to level up in the early stages but once they are maxed out they simply exist to give you resources every hour or so or to give you a bench to work on your equipment. They feel like an under-developed mechanic and leave you questioning whether maxed out wings were going to allocate you hard daily challenges for you to accomplish upon completion.

Speaking of loot, the chances of getting something great for your arsenal is very high as the randomly-generated drops are forthcoming. You will collect a combination of gear to equip as well as consumables to assist with healing or to give you buffs to damage or resistances. Each of the gear pieces however come in multiple forms and looks allowing you to not just customise your play style preferences but also your character’s fashion sense. This is managed by each gun being in a different category as well as armour having split roles in three different trees tied to your wings. Guns include LMGs, SMGs, Marksman Rifles, Assault Rifles, Shotguns and Side Arms with no restrictions placed on them except their level requirements. They also come with unlockable abilities such as increased critical hit chance depending on your armour set-up. This is where your gear is tied to Armaments, Medicine or Defence with the trees governing damage, health and resistance respectively. Players that prefer to be a meat shield can take the more defensive route whilst damage dealers will have to tread carefully as they are most likely to become glass cannons. Every potential build has its own benefits and draw backs which players can explore and customise to their liking, making the game that much more credible to collectors and trophy/achievement hunters.

The problem with loot however is how the armour does nothing for your character customisation. The initial options for creating your character are lack lustre at best with eight different head options and very small tweaks for the rest of your face. You don’t even get to decide whether you are a thin or fat guy or girl, it is all about the head. Even tattoos are stupid as they are based around the neck of your character only, which are quickly covered up by a scarf you can gain via enemy drop or store purchase. You cannot even relate to your character let alone the world around you in this game making it feel more like an alienating experience rather than one of drive and passion. Customisation must have also lacked with the AI as quest givers, enemies and civilians all look the same falling under Skyrim levels of similarity. There are only three enemy variations per faction which is not great, though the AI helps the quality of these enemies shine, at least to some extent.

The cover-based fighting in a third-person environment feels great with both the movement and the field of view balanced together. This means that you will be able to move quickly from one wall to the next but also have the benefit of seeing as much of your environment as possible instead of having the camera zoomed in to give you tunnel vision. The reason for this is down to the AI which takes full advantage of the environment as you do. Enemy units will suppress you with constant fire whilst others flank your position to get better shots in or charge at you knowing that you can’t retaliate. This encourages players to constantly be on the lookout and move appropriately to flank enemies and control the battlefield. Failure to do so can and will result in you being swamped on all sides and shot down with ease, especially when in the Dark Zone.

Instead of opting for a specific match-orientated PvP system with Team Death matches and Capture the Flag objectives, the game instead offers a world based PvP zone for players to explore. The Dark Zone has its own districts with varying levels of difficulty and chances of acquiring the rarest of loot. However simply picking up a weapon and leaving is not an option as you must extract the items to use them both in and out of the zone, due to them being classed as infected. This can prove to be the hardest challenge of the area as other players will fight to steal your equipment or even help secure the area so that everyone can get the gear they earned to safety. Anything can happen within this region but sadly that doesn’t make it exempt from one tedious issue. Up to this point enemies have spawned in well-positioned areas and can swarm you naturally. In the Dark Zone however, there have been times where the enemies have spawned right in front or even behind players whilst they are exploring, in a fight or trying to get out of a sticky situation. This immediately ramps up the difficulty in a bad way as you are no longer just fighting challenging opposition but also seem to be fighting the game itself as it does not want you to succeed. This makes parts of the Dark Zone frustrating and can result in you attempting to leave the PvP area without any care of loot or progression. As much as this location was built with advertising encouraging the act of ‘going rogue’, there is no real benefit of doing so apart from gaining other players gear. If anything you are punished for going rogue as all players are alerted to your presence and AI seem to be alerted just as much. You effectively become public enemy number one and everyone is after you. The DZ is definitely constructed around coordinated, team-based gameplay and not around killing people for loot. It makes you wonder why there couldn’t be a DZ match maker when in the zone that allows you to queue up for objective-based matches, offering a more traditional PvP environment.

The problems with The Division falls with its constant lack of real drive to keep you going. After a certain point in the game you will be so powerful that even the Dark Zone doesn’t give you the challenge you yearn for. Other players, unless they have similar levels of equipment as you do, will do next to no damage against high ranking operatives in the PvP zone, making some builds insanely overpowered. Lack of enemy variation also means a lack of great boss fights. Named enemies are cool, but they all look exactly the same. That is until the final boss fight when things finally switch up as you go against a fully-equipped helicopter. Too bad that even this fight is made boring by the terrible radio chatter from your allies as well as the helicopter having awful flight patterns and providing no real challenge what so ever. You are effectively fighting another meat shield that could be guarding another piece of loot or another funky hat.

The world may seem interesting but with no real closure to the story it falls completely flat by the end game. It is a shame to see that the name Tom Clancy does nothing for The Division and instead puts another lack lustre title under the franchises banner. Gun loot is done really well, as well as modifications, but the character customisation as well as variety is really poor. How can you feel like a secret operative when a level 30 character can look exactly the same as someone just starting out. The gameplay does make up for this with some fun and challenging battles, but these can quickly become tiresome once your equipment has reached high levels of damage and resistance. It is a shame to see that The Division in the early game shows promise, but as you progress there is a lack of content to keep you enthralled unless you are crazy about loot. I recommend this game to people looking for an alternative to Destiny, but I cannot suggest it to those who are looking for the next great Tom Clancy experience.

What are your thoughts on The Division? Are you excited to get your hands on the game or are you still undecided? Let us know your thoughts in the comments and keep an eye out for our guides on The Division coming soon or check out the video version of our review.