The Division Beta Impressions

It has certainly been a long wait and here we are almost at the launch of The Division. This is a title I've been wanting ever since its initial announcement trailer a few E3s ago and after many delays it's finally coming soon. With that in mind I was able to jump into the latest beta and just play around in the city of New York. I quickly moved through the campaign levels which were mostly just a tease if anything. It seems like the feel of the game's story will be very mature and focused around rebuilding the base of operations which is in shambles. There are three key wings to this place including technology, medical and security that look really rough at the start. While only a small tease was given when you head forth to save the lead of the medical staff a fair bit of gameplay will revolve around getting this place run smoothly. The one real mission present was actually fairly expansive having you move through the Garden's (NYC arena) and exploring multiple levels. This includes the arena concession area, the arena surface, the above rafters and more. It was certainly an impressive display of what they have going on in the city and hopefully that sort of depth is present in other buildings since many buildings are mainly just for walking by.





One of the most important things for me coming into this beta was seeing how well everything runs and the graphic depth. What absolutely amazed my friends and I so many E3s ago was the quality of graphics in the trailer. I of course had my doubts though I was blown away when playing the beta, with just the shear amount of minor items that make the world so full. You walk by so many detailed areas such as garbage filled streets, Christmas lights filled areas and many small intimate areas like in the photo below. I also find it quite funny that this individual seems to have two separate families and two cactus, slightly odd. Though it serves as a display of just how crazy they've gone with the details and I'm amazed the game looks this great. There were some minor screen tearing areas though honestly it played perfectly fine across my adventures in the closed off beta areas. This is where it really felt like this area was just a tease demo to get people interested and they already had my attention regardless, with what I've seen here I don't know how the core game could go wrong. Moving on let's talk about the HUD and general cooperative play. While it might seem busy for people, I absolutely love how much is going on around the screen. There are just tons of indicators, positional marks and even enemy locaters if you have some certain abilities on. It's most certainly a more futuristic title though things still feel very grounded to reality and I appreciate that about Tom Clancy titles. When it comes to cooperative play it works incredibly well as friends can just hop into a match in order to help you out or there's the very fast matchmaking option. The game works very hard at making sure that cooperative options are available though you can do it solo, but honestly where's the fun in that. If you also want a bit more competitive combat there's a Darkzone section where players can kill each other across deadly streets though really not my sort of thing to be honest.



I could probably go on for quite awhile talking about the game though I just really wanted to cover the core basics from what I played. It's an incredibly impressive game and if they pull it off it could very well by the biggest game of the year. It just feels so expansive despite playing in a small area and when you throw friends into the mix it gets even better. New York looks just stunning even though the wild contamination event has caused mass distress and the snow weather conditions are amazing. I'm very impressed with the beta and what I played, honestly can't wait to see what the massive world of the full game offers.

Check out my The Division Beta Scrapbook (Screenshots from the beta)

Impressions Made on The Division Beta