The Division - Finally something to agree on....

I caught up with a few old friends this week to discuss the hot properties coming out of E3. The atmosphere was weird; the dark rooms we had sat in watching the press conferences doors had put everyone under a constant strain and set us all off in an argumentative manner. Whether it was the massive mech title ‘Titanfall’ or the big brother ethic in ‘Watch Dogs’, none of us could agree on our expectations – that was until we started talking about Massive Entertainments ‘The Division’.

Shown off during the conference, this seemingly sandboxed third person shooter had managed to get all our appetites wet. The two swedes showing off the project, Petter Mannerfelt and Nicklas Cederstrom, have stumbled across something special here.

Massive have been a studio to watch; they released the excellent Cold War strategy game, World in Conflict, assisted on Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry but have also been linked with various other projects before this was shown off last month. In fact it had been strongly rumoured that they were working on an MMO and then that they had links to the Tom Clancy license before we had heard anything about The Division. But, given their top notch productions, it’s still a normal affair for Ubisoft to place studios under their own heavy leadership and vision; setting them to work on a title that would drift into the horizon without another thought.

Thankfully though, The Division is all Massive's work - right down to the next-generation Snowdrop engine - and it couldn't be any more confident or, importantly, any more modern. Every member of the discussion was excited about the persistent online world, the gripping narrative and (I’ll commit a cardinal sin here) the excellent graphics.

Probably the most impressive thing though is that The Division has only been in development for about a year, and with only a team of 200 behind it, the game is already very impressive. It’s scheduled for an appetising release alongside Bungie’s Destiny and a wave of other MMOs in 2014 (although I’m punning the term CSMMO – ‘Console Style Massively Multiplayer Online’).

Although the title presents itself as a blockbuster action game, with a lot of cover shooter mechanics, Massive have been pushing that this is first and foremost a role-playing game - it’s being billed as an “Online Open-World RPG”.

The discussion group and I love RPG games because of their variety and progression opportunities. It’s the exact opposite of why we also all love Call of Duty; a game where you character is just as good at the beginning of the campaign as they are in the end.  The RPG elements of The Division follow player progression, looting and upgrades as well as strong crafting and customisation mechanics.

If anything, the game is pushed for a single genre as it's the scenario, rather than the console-friendly presentation, that really makes The Division stand out among its peers. Its direct competition comes from Destiny, and even Borderlands, but both provide a hybrid game style. The Division has the gritty credibility, provided by the Clancy name, and a set-up ripped straight from the most paranoid news headlines. A severe viral epidemic has exposed the fragility of first-world society, and amid crashing markets and infrastructure, the operatives are struggling to bring the chaos under control through the open New York City.

The most interesting concept in The Division is "dark zones". These are contaminated areas of New York where power and food are in short supply and lawlessness is at its worst. These are set to be the PVP zones of the game, where players are free to attack each other; you're always safe from player attacks outside them but these areas will be rife for conflict.

The missions you complete in there zones offer the best loot in the game but also come with the biggest risks. The loot has to be extracted and decontaminated before you can use it and the player must send up a flare for extraction 90 seconds before they can leave the area – during this time other players can attack your position and claim the loot from you, with the flare drawing their attention.

It's also been mentioned that players will be able to influence New York itself, bringing sectors under control and the city back alive by chaining missions together. But when asked how this will work – whether each player city will differ or if the world will be linked to everyone – Massive have yet to commit.

Oddly, Massive have also confirmed that they are looking at the Xbox One’s cloud capabilities and have mentioned that this allows them to run physics separately. The example given was that one player may influence the waves of the sea, whether by driving a boat or via a grenade, and the ripples of that action will affect those within a designated radius.

We held a lot of back and forth conversations about Massive’s sales techniques. A few of us are resigned to the micro-transactions that have become a staple of the business, while others expected the game to be sold boxed as a free-to-play title. Perhaps the one thing we agreed on was that subscription systems seem unlikely. 

The Division is shaping up to be the Tom Clancy game that we’ve been missing out on for a few years and, no matter your genre preferences, there seems to be a reason to suck you in. The game style and ideas are speaking for themselves and that shows why it was high up my list of E3 announcements.