Tom Clancy’s The Division – properly next gen

GameCentral takes a look at Ubisoft’s latest, and what may be the most technologically advanced next gen game – and in terms of more than just graphics.

If Microsoft hadn’t been making headlines for all the wrong reasons we’d be talking about some very different controversies right about now. There’s not only the usual argument over which console is most powerful, but also the problem that the next generational leap in graphics is not as pronounced as it usually is. Some Xbox One and PlayStation 4 games we’ve seen could easily pass for Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 titles and there are very few games that look like they’d be impossible on current hardware. But The Division is one of those few.



At first though the game doesn’t sound all that promising. It’s yet another post-apocalyptic game set in New York and although there are no zombies (it’s a pandemic this time, passed on by diseased bank notes) it still revolves around society breaking down and roving gangs of scavengers fighting over scant resources.

But the first clue that The Division is trying to do things differently is that it describes itself as an ‘online open world RPG’. A massively multiplayer online game by any other words, but without any of the negative connotations of that genre and with third person combat very similar to other Tom Clancy games.


You play as an agent in a secret government organisation trained to restore order in the event of a natural disaster or pandemic outbreak. The odds are very much against you though and the mission we’re shown involves storming a police station and liberating the police inside from being captives in their own cells.

As we’ve noticed with other top-end next gen games it’s not necessarily that they feature anything that hasn’t been seen in games before, but that they recreate the familiar in far greater levels of detail. The version of New York we see here looks almost photorealistic, not just in terms of the geometry and the objects littering the ruined streets and houses, but the way the shadows fall and the lights flicker in a near perfect mimicry of the real world.

The new Snowdrop engine, created by Swedish company Massive, is clearly a beast and the use of high res textures has us marvelling at such mundanities as chipped door frames and half-destroyed cars, as if they’re some kind of new and fascinating work of art.

The attention to detail isn’t just in the visuals, but in the way your character interacts with the world. As the attack on the police station begins the agent takes cover behind a car and as he moves right to left he puts out his hand to close the still partially open door. A tiny and meaningless detail but cumulative with all the others one that adds immensely to the sense of immersion.



Although the fact that the players manage to bring down half the police roof during the firefight, illustrating the impressively destructive scenery, is another less subtle proof of the game’s verisimilitude.

Tom Clancy’s The Division – not just a shooter

The combat itself seems slick and visceral, although until we get to try it ourselves we obviously can’t say for sure. Massive are clearly serious about the game’s role-playing elements though, as they explain that there are no pre-set classes and instead you chop and change your character’s abilities and skills on the fly, via a natty holographic watch.

The game’s clearly designed with co-op in mind and as Massive draw out the map we get a true sense of the game’s scale. Not so much in terms of the world’s size but the many groups of other players fighting their own battles at the same time as you – and potentially with and against you if your paths cross.

Already it’s obvious that one of the key themes of the next generation is blurring the line between single and multiplayer gaming, and The Division seems to do so in a particularly elegant way, allowing you to choose the kind of experience you want based purely on where you go and what missions you take.

But there’s one last surprise left for the end of the preview, where Massive demonstrate an Android tablet being used to interact with an actual mission. All of Ubisoft’s new games use a tablet or smartphone in some way, usually as a map or a customisation tool. But The Division is much more ambitious than that and allows another player to join in a battle as a drone.


They’re given a top down view of the world, that looks remarkably similar to the actual game, and we watch as the drone buffs players with stat upgrades, targets enemies in their HUD and – once a meter has built up – call in missile strikes and other offensive abilities.

Seeing an Android tablet work so seamless with one of the best-looking games of the next gen is frankly astonishing, and we’ve not seen anything else like it at E3. In the strictest sense of the word it is a gimmick but the fact that you don’t have to be anywhere near the console for it to work – all you need is an Internet connection – opens up a new world of possibilities in the future.

For now though we’ll just settle for The Division, which we fully expect to be one of next year’s biggest games. Especially after discussing some of the finer details with producer Fredrik Runnquist and production director Peter Mannerfelt.

Formats: Xbox One and PlayStation 4

Publisher: Ubisoft

Developer: Ubisoft Massive

Release Date: 2014

GC: Don’t take this the wrong way, because I think the game looks fantastic, but when did Massive suddnely become so good at graphics? How long have you been working on this?

PM: For the last couple of years we have worked on a brand new next gen engine, called Snowdrop. So currently we have 50 or 60 programmers working on the engine, so it’s a big investment and it’s a really fantastic engine. It looks fantastic and it’s really good to work with as well. But what we have tried to do is push the graphics, so we’re pushing it with the lighting and we’re pushing it with the destruction – as you saw in the demo. And it’s not predetermined destruction, it’s actually modifying things in real-time.


GC: How do such detailed graphics add to the gameplay though? If it looked terrible would it still play the same?

PM: The destruction, for example, it actually changes the landscape and that then changes the lighting, so everything is kind of intermingled with each other. So we can destroy something and we have a global illumination system so that the lighting actually adapts to what’s happening – say you have shot out the overhead lights – and then you have to adapt to that new situation as you fight.

GC: In the demo you talked about other players coming in to attack you. Does that mean that some people are playing as the government soldiers and some are scavengers? Is that the idea?

PM: You always play an agent. [Several moments of bewildered silence as the Ghostbusters theme tune starts up at 100 decibels, at the Just Dance booth next door.] So, there will be quite a few both hostile and friendly factions throughout the game, and you will either engage with them or…

GC: But why would they be hostile if they’re also part of the Division, have they gone rogue or something?

PM: Yes, yes. The pandemic happened so quickly that people have been caught out and have no resources, which is where much of the conflict comes from.

GC: If you were playing the game on your own, would you have computer-controlled companions going along with you?

FR: No, you will not have AIs around.

GC: Can you give an idea of some of the skills and abilities of the characters? How do they compare to other action role-players?

FR: [The start of this answer is drowned out entirely by Just bloody Dance on our recorder, but if memory serves he describes a number of exciting sounding special abilities] ..and we have also shown the shockwave. There’s plenty more skills and we have only shown a very few here for the purposes of the demo.

GC: How many skills are there in total, are we talking something on the scale of Skyrim?

PM: Oh, lots and lots and lots. I can’t give you an exact number but between talents and skills, and your typical skill tree; weapons gears, it’s all about modding, it’s all about crafting. Because first and foremost we wanted it to be a deep and rich RPG.

GC: I see, so you started the game as a role-player not as a shooter?

FR: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. The shooting came later actually.

GC: So if it’s a role-playing game does that imply that there’s also complex character interactions? Perhaps Mass Effect style dialogue wheels or something similar?

PM: We haven’t really decided about that yet, about the exact level of interaction we’ll be including.

GC: But it’s a possibility?

PM: Oh yes. I mean, you’re not playing the hero. In a RPG you’re typically playing yourself: it’s your own story, it’s your own progression. So the other factions – both the hostile and the friendly – they will play a very important role in the game. It’s the whole dynamic of the game where different parts of the city are taken over by hostile factions and then can be taken over by you, as an agent, and handed back to the public. So it goes back and forth.

FR: So it’s very much about your actions and how you affect the world, but also about how the events change you personally in terms of experience, and loot, gear customisation, weapon customisation, character customisation, skin customisation… a lot of customisation!

GC: You almost make it sound like an MMO, were you not tempted to call it that?

PM: You can call it whatever you like!

GC: But how many people would be playing in a typical city at once?

PM: You can either play solo or you can go into group play, and that’s completely seamless. And you can also go into multiplayer PvP (player vs. player) zones. And in those we have many players, exactly how many I can’t really talk about but it is certainly a lot.

Tom Clancy’s The Division – also available on Android

GC: The only criticism I can think of the game at this stage is that it’s the one billionth game set in New York during some sort of disaster. Was that overfamiliarity not a concern of yours?

PM: The thing is that when you do research there are very few iconic locations in the world generally, that when you test it on people they always recognise. And we also wanted one of the Western world’s icons of modern society, so you can have the contrast between the society that forms after the pandemic and what you know. We wanted that to be very strong. So if you took an unknown city or a virtual city the impact of the game would be a lot less clear for people, I think.

GC: So you’re trying to have people imagine what would happen if it hit their city?

PM: Exactly, exactly.

GC: Ubisoft have been very keen on tablet connectivity this E3, but I wonder if this is a sort of tacit validation of the Wii U? That the idea of having a primary or secondary controller with a touchscreen is actually a really good idea. It just seems a shame that Nintendo aren’t able to benefit from their own prescience. I assume there is no Wii U version of this, for example?

FR: Will it run on Wii U? No, No. But I think this idea of having a second screen has been progressing for many, many years now and so we initially made this design two or three years back with a prototype from before we started doing this game. And we talked to our engineers back then and they went crazy, they said ‘It’s impossible! This will never run on a tablet!’

PM: But apart from just the technical side of it we didn’t want it to come across as a gimmick, we wanted something truly meaningful and we think the setting and the choice of you controlling a drone actually works well. Imagine if you were controlling another character, it would be a lot more difficult with potential latency and so on. But a drone makes sense and it if there is a little bit of lag that actually makes sense in the context of what it is. So we think we’ve found a very good mix of all things to make a meaningful experience.

GC: So will the Snowdrop engine be used for other Ubisoft games in the future?

FR: At the moment it’s for this game only, but we think it’s a powerful and versatile engine so we’ll see what happens.

GC: How far do you feel you’ve pushed the next gen consoles with Snowdrop? Do you have a clear picture yet of exactly what they’re capable of?

PM: Well, if you look at the full cycle of the current gen – the first games and the last games – I’m sure you’ll see the same with this gen.

FR: We’ll just keep pushing the next gen, and I think what you’ll see next year will be much more impressive than anything this year.

GC: Does the game use cloud-processing on the Xbox One?

PM: Yes, but not in terms of gameplay.

GC: I’m still not clear but is it possible to do that with the PlayStation 4 as well? I don’t see any reason why not and you seem like you’d know…

PM: Yeah, sure. It’s just the cloud.

GC: Is that something you’re doing with the PlayStation 4 at the moment?

PM: We’ll see. [laughs]

GC: OK, that’s great. Thanks very much.

PM: Thank you!

FR: No problem.

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