Search results
The entire open world is SO alive and so constantly moving and working and breathing. I completely fail to understand how some people could say things like Assassins Creed Valhalla’s open world was better, its mostly empty, and boring. The Division 2 is a vastly vastly better living open world. It has the best combat and enemy AI.
- Strong firefights lost in the open-world static.
- Verdict
By Vince Ingenito
Updated: May 2, 2017 4:39 pm
Posted: Mar 17, 2016 1:17 am
It’s not too hard to find nice things to say about Tom Clancy’s The Division, especially as it unfurls in its strong opening hours: its open-world version of Manhattan is both gorgeous and authentic, its cover-based third-person combat is sound, and its RPG elements run surprisingly deep. And yet, next to every good thing The Division does, there hangs a big, ugly asterisk. That same open world is barren and unengaging, combat gets bogged down with samey waves of walking bullet sponges, and character progression is awkwardly fractured in inconvenient ways. Outside of the tension of the PvPvE Dark Zone, there’s little that makes this virtual Manhattan feel alive or dangerous.
Visually, The Division leans heavily but very effectively on the all-too-familiar iconography of post-biological-disaster Manhattan. Coming out of an early security checkpoint, daylight blinded me until my “eyes” adjusted, and then I saw it: an improvised memorial to those who had given their lives trying to take Manhattan back from the chaos that's swallowed it in the wake of an unprecedented terror attack.
I’ve spent time in the real New York City, and in fact my father was in Manhattan on 9/11. I've seen memorials like this, littered with the helmets of fallen firefighters and hastily scrawled children's drawings with "thank you" writ large across the top. It is, perhaps, a cheap way to get me emotionally invested in the conflict that drives the fragmented story forward, but it worked – at least for a time. From the quaint Christmas lights in Chelsea to the ominously unlit Times Square, The Division is full of evocative visual moments. It never follows up on them in any substantive way, but they do manage to make the city itself the most interesting character in the cast.
There’s definitely some decent meat to chew on in The Division, but it’s usually surrounded by too much gristle to enjoy it for long. Both in combat and out, there are some clearly good ideas, especially the tense and dangerous Dark Zone. But they’re not spread evenly or interwoven cleanly enough to form a cohesive, consistently enjoyable loop. Ult...
Mar 15, 2016 · The Division is an open world RPG co-op cover ... I spent over 30 hours sprinting between icons in a beautifully rendered open world, ... the combat was usually a good challenge. We depended on ...
- james@pcgamer.com
Nov 21, 2018 · The Division grasps at the periphery of an engaging story with its optional narrative footage, but it's a far cry from the lore-stuffed cinematic missions that feature in other open world RPGs.
- jez@windowscentral.com
- Co-Managing Editor
Mar 18, 2019 · The Division 2 presents a much stronger campaign experience than the first game, with fewer filler missions, and better open world side activities. Its endgame, too, is a satisfyingly different ...
Mar 21, 2019 · The Division 2 is huge. But unlike so many open-world games, every inch of its enormous approximation of downtown Washington, D.C. is brimming with activity.
People also ask
Is the division a good open world?
Is Division 2 better than the first game?
Does the Division 2 make you pay attention to the story?
Is the division a good game?
Mar 17, 2016 · A good open world teases you off the path from A to B with the promise of discovery and emergent shenanigans; all I really got from The Division was a breadcrumb trail to follow through a series ...
