055IT’S A RIOT
One of the best skills to master
is the use of the armoured riot
shield. Though you can only use a
pistol with this, it means you can
draw fire while your squad flanks.SKILFUL SHOOTER
Each class of character has
access to skills that you can
make use of in the heat of battle,
including drones and remote
firing heavy machine guns.and modern buildings. There’s a
variety to Washington DC that was
often lacking in the original game’s
Manhattan-set grid-based layout.
“Manhattan is iconic but limited in
the type of environments [we could
create]. Washington DC is very rich
by contrast; you have an almost
subtropical climate in the summer,”
details Karlson. “Nature is just so full
of life. You have an almost jungle-like
nature in Roosevelt, wherever there is
nature it’s trying to claw itself back
and takeover; you have the wide-open
spaces of the Mall, huge lawns and
epic monuments; and places like
Georgetown, which is European in
nature and is full of narrow streets
and back alleys [...] variety is not
just about the pleasure of getting
contrasting visual variety but it needs
to play differently; fundamentally it’s
a shooter.”
It’s that last statement that catches
us, as more than anything The
Division 2 is a shooter, albeit one withstrong role-playing layers, “where the
RPG is true, deep RPG,” affirms
Karlson. The game walks a fine line
between offering an action RPG story
campaign set in the real world, which
is now matched with a revised Dark
Zone, as well as more traditional
shooter modes, including the PvP [see
World In Conflict, p51] at launch, and
the promise of eight-player Raids. It’s
a series that has helped make the
online co-op blended gameplay genre,
started with Destiny and dominated
by Monster Hunter: World, so
essential on PlayStation 4.
At its core, however, behind the epic
what-if narrative (Karlson teases
“Maybe” when we prod whether The
Division 2 is taking the story global)
this sequel is aboutthatunique
experiment, to see what we do when
no-one is looking and the lights go
out. How we’ll behave. As it turns out,
a divided world is a whole lot more
fun than a united one – but thank
goodness it’s just a game.York, gives The Division 2 an instant
accessibility. As we patrol through the
American capital, which has been
ravaged by riots and then overtaken by
nature, the world and its backstory
connect on an emotional level.
“You internalise it instantly, you
don’t question it, so you can start
enjoying the richness of what makes it
different rather than understanding the
world in the first place,” says Karlson.
“That’s where the transformation
comes in, where ‘okay this is
Washington DC’. If you know the city
you’re going to be able to literally
follow your internal compass in The
Division 2, but the transformation of
what has happened in this seven
months since New York is what makes
it extra special.”
GRID UNLOCKED
The fidelity to the real-world
Washington is also what makes it so
much fun to play in. The city is a
blend of old and new, of narrow streets
[1] You can use armour kits to heal, but keep an eye out for team members who
need reviving. [2] You’ll get extracted from some very famous locations at the end
of your missions – if you survive, of course. [3] Different areas provide different
sorts of cover, and Washington’s got plenty of greenery. [4] A drone! Kill it!1
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