Ubisoft’s long-in-development shooter-RPG hybrid Tom Clancy’s The Division was first revealed at the publisher’s E3 2013 conference, with very little information given in the following two years. Today, that changed, with a brand new look at gameplay in a dangerous new area, a beta announcement, and – yes – a release date.
Taking place in the “Dark Zone,” a contagious area highly contested by agents in Manhattan, the demo on display finds a group of players searching for supplies on New Year’s Day when they encounter not only a group of other hostile agents, but also a few who are willing to work together to clear the area. Clearly, alliances are new, as the Christmas lights from before world came to a halt are still on full display in Times Square. Ubisoft stresses that you can “work alongside other agents or turn against them,” sometimes with little warning.
In the demonstration, this betrayal comes not only when our agents decide to murder the friends who helped them in the previous firefight, but also when a rogue player decides to kill the rest of his team, as well. In The Division, no one can be trusted, even if they’ve been at your side since the apocalypse began.
While the majority of the gear on display during the show was already seen in previous trailers, the addition of a “seeker” grenade — which rolls on the ground to take out hard-to-reach targets — as well as flamethrower-wielding enemies, mix the crudeness usually seen in the post-apocalyptic with the advanced technology that Tom Clancy games are known for.
For those attending E3, The Division will be playable for the first time ever tomorrow, June 16 at the Ubisoft booth, and a beta will begin early next year PS4 and PC, with Xbox players getting early access this December. The game launches for all three platforms on March 8, 2016.
