Tom Clancy’s The Division – it’ll be out when it’s done

GameCentral speaks to one of the creators of the best-looking next gen so far, but will it play as good as it looks?

We’re finally reaching the home stretch when it comes to writing up all our E3 coverage, and inevitability we’ve had to prioritise some games over others – usually based on whether they’re brand new announcements and whether they were playable or not. The Division was neither and in fact its showing at E3 was relatively low key compared to last year, with few new features unveiled and one of its two trailers being purely pre-rendered.



It’s still undoubtedly one of the best-looking next gen games so far though, and we suspect the slightly reserved showing was due to the recent delay – which developer Massive has already hinted may push the game back as far as 2016.

Although we didn’t get to play the game a behind closed doors demo did allow us to watch live gameplay, although it was still the same mission from the Microsoft pre-E3 conference. E3 is often accused of focusing only on the action, often giving a very distorted view of some games, and we’re not sure that simply showing a quick third person shooting match was really the best way to get across The Division’s unique qualities.


It was great to see that the graphics are indeed as good as promised, with lots of impressive destruction effects, and the drop-in co-op action was interesting; but in terms of being a third person shooter the initial demo didn’t really seem to be doing anything very unique.

As you may know the back story to the game is a deadly contagion that has overtaken the population of New York (and, it’s implied, other cities), that may or may not have been a terrorist attack. You play as a government agent specially trained to maintain law and order when the normal pillars of society have broken down.

The Division takes place in an open world recreation of The Big Apple, with the demo player demonstrating a ‘mega map’ which not only shows your location but also the level of infection, the morale level of civilians, and the security threat from marauders. These factors act as one of many indications of the impact you’re having on the world, with the choice of where to go and what to do left entirely up to you.

Tom Clancy’s The Division – best graphics ever?

In the demo the players are trying to clear out some of the nearby malcontents so they can set-up a new base of operations. Starting off underground though they first make use of an ‘Echo device’, which supposedly pools together information from nearby security cameras in order to form a recreation of recent events. This can be helpful tactically but it primarily seems to be story-telling device, giving you some context to the fight you’re about to get into.



The firefight above grounds goes pretty much the same as in the Microsoft event, but there’s more time to get a look at the customisable skills that each agent has, which can be altered on the fly and are usually used in tandem with a specific piece of equipment.

So, for example, you might have an auto-turret but you can then customise it so that it doesn’t shoot people but instead works like a flashbang by simply disorientating them. It seems as if everything can be altered in a similar way, from drones to ordinary weapons, with the players doing so in real-time – without so much as a pause menu.

Interestingly the developer then repeated the same demo but using different tactics, with one of the team using a tablet to to control a drone. This one isn’t used for combat, but instead highlights enemies so that the whole team can see them. The first time round the mission ended with the appearance of an ‘Elite’ enemy, but in the second run the team’s experience level is artificially reduced and so he never turns up.

Massive are clearly using examples such as this to emphasise the game’s role-playing credentials, which even seem to extend to finding loot – such as a new backpack that increases the size of your inventory – after defeating an enemy, almost like a Diablo-esque dungeon crawler.

The final example is taking on a group of flamethrower-equipped enemies, who we’re told are impossible to beat unless you have the specific equipment necessary, such as gas masks. In fact the game won’t even let you try unless you meet its minimum requirements for the encounter.


Seeing the game like this was a lot more reassuring than watching the edited highlights and even though we don’t get to see what taking over the base actually involves we were able to get a few tantalising clues by also having a chat with one of the Massive producers…

Formats: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC

Publisher: Ubisoft

Developer: Ubisoft Massive, Ubisoft Reflections, and Ubisoft Red Storm

Release Date: 2015

GC: So I think most people still regard The Division as one of, if not the, best-looking next gen games. Which I assume you’re very happy about.

AM: Yes, we are very happy about that!

GC: It’s certainly not the ugliest.

AM: [laughs]

GC: But a problem you often get with really good looking games, and you saw it happen with Watch Dogs just recently, is that the way the marketing works it can be quite a long time before it’s made obvious what kind of game it actually is. And then you’re inevitably disappointed when you find out it’s just a GTA clone, or in the case of The Division a third person shooter.

AM: Sure, I think it’s a good question. I think making sure you focus on the content as well as just how it looks is really, really important. So, I mean… I know one of the big taglines for us is it’s a third person shooter but we actually think of it as a RPG. So the shooting and the weapons… have you seen the live stage demo yet?


GC: No, I’m afraid I’m doing this interview backwards. So I’ll see it after this.

AM: Oh, okay. Well, in that you’ll get to see how we do the interaction between the weapon you choose and the skill loadouts of your agent, the synergy between them. Everything in the game is progression-based, so your experience is based around the set-up of your agent and it will be different to everyone else’s experience. So it’s not a linear shooter and it’s not even an open world game where you just pick up different missions as you go through them one at a time.

We’re a multiplayer game, so people can play together and there’s synergy between them as well. So of course we’re going to have the fears that it looks ‘too good’, but this is actually the minimum level of detail that we wanted in order to create the kind of game we wanted to make. The graphics enable the gameplay, it’s not a tech demo that we just added a shooter over the top of.

GC: So there aren’t going to be any GIFs on NeoGAF comparing what you promised to what it actually ends up as?

AM: No, no. I hope not. That’s what we’re trying to make sure doesn’t happen.

Tom Clancy’s The Division – the fire effects are amazing

GC: Is there an intrinsic problem with talking about games this far in advance of their release? There is a sense that it almost ensures disappointment on some level. And I get the impression you would’ve rather not had a release date at this point, and never felt there really was a ‘delay’.

AM: Well, thankfully release dates and that kind of concern is not my issue. What we’re doing is making sure we’re delivering on everything we’ve promised and yes, it can be difficult talking about specific features two years before release, or whenever, but that’s just the nature of the industry. And having to stand up in front of everyone and demo your game is just one of my jobs.

GC: Oh, that was you was it?

AM: Yes! How did I look?

GC: Considering how far back I was sitting, like a stick man.

AM: [laughs]

GC: So I think it was implied in the demo that your goal was actually taking over a new base?

AM: Yeah, that’s right. The mission that the agents are on in that demo is to unlock a base of operations. Which is really like a kind of foothold, so if you think of New York as kind of this urban wilderness these are the areas you can establish as kind of anchors – for you personally and also your team or your group.

GC: But what does controlling a base actually involve? Do you just get there and you’re selecting options off a menu or is it a physical place you walk around in?

AM: It’s a physical place, the base has many advantages for you as an agent. Like, there’s modules which you bring online and the mechanics are RPG-based, so depending on what you do in the area it has an effect on your base and the benefits it can give. So that’s the relation between you and your headquarters. But specifically we’re not going into detail, but if you watch the demo you’ll see it’s where your stash will be, it’s where you’ll be able to fast travel from, and things like that.

GC: Will it be a place you have to defend, that enemies will want to take back from you?

AM: [laughs] Well, I couldn’t say but that sounds like it might be a really cool kind of gameplay feature. [laughs]

GC: The CGI trailer was very good but it was also very melancholy. I do get frustrated that video games think the only way they can come across as realistic or mature is to be bleak and depressing. Do you not worry that the atmosphere is going to be too much of a downer for players?

AM: It’s a good question. I think that from the outset we knew we were making an adult game about… we’re basically infecting the entire world with this virus. But the whole underlying theme of, not only that trailer but the game, is hope. Players like to play games where you can have an impact, you have a purpose, and you feel like you’ve done something in your journey through the game. So it’s not about beating our players down with this bleak situation, but it is setting up a scenario in which they can help to improve things.

Tom Clancy’s The Division – the base you’re fighting over is a huge museum

GC: It is odd how rarely you actually play the hero in a modern video game, but I guess that was definitely a factor in the trailer. I mean you’re a government man for a start, aren’t you?

AM: They are government, yes. It’s a Clancy agency so of course they’re highly trained, and then introduced into society when they’re activated. So, I think the great thing about RPGs in general is that since there is no ‘X’ hero of the game or ‘Y’ hero of the game what you decide to do is your own story. How you become the hero, so to speak. So I think that the power of these types of games is that you are that representation in the game, that becomes you over time and the hours and hours and hours you play.

GC: Will it be obvious to the game, and perhaps to other players, as to whether you’re playing it as a good guy or more of self-centred protagonist? I’m imagining maybe you pass a civilian and they react to you in a certain way based on your reputation.

AM: Sure, yeah. You’ll see that morality is a big thing in the game and that’s your kind of overall standing in an area, in terms of the civilians.

GC: And in terms of pure gameplay mechanics, how do you hope to distinguish the game? How will you be fighting the impression you get from the demo that this is ‘just’ a third person shooter?

AM: We are going for a different feel in the genre right now because we’re so heavily… we’re a cover-focused combat game that relies a lot on the management of your skills, the gadgets, the Clancy tech that we have in the game. That really differentiates it. I think our setting is very unique, and the enemies… they’re not dragons and aliens.

The game’s realistic but it’s a very extreme scenario, it lives in its own world. Especially with the setting being mid-crisis, and something that I think everyone in Western civilisation highly fears – like what if your cellphone suddenly doesn’t work? And the Internet suddenly stops working. What do you do? Because I couldn’t cope, I dunno about you. I’m one of the first dead in this scenario.

GC: [laughs]

AM: So it’s really, really frightening to think about this type of scenario. So I think all of that combined with the role-playing angle positions us for a very unique experience.

GC: And just finally, in terms of the multiplayer. Do you play as the marauders, the bad guys, in that? Presumably you’re not fighting with other agents?

AM: No, no, you’re all one agency. And the multiplayer works seamlessly, so you can play from the start by yourself if you want; all the way through the game. We hope you don’t, because the way we’ve designed the game is to reward people for playing together. So it’s a fully online game where you can play on your own, as a part of a team, and also competitively in PvP [player vs. player] areas. But you don’t have to do any of those things if you don’t want to.

GC: So when you say PvP areas is that instances of the open world or separate maps or something?

AM: They’re seamless public areas.

GC: So you go to Central Park or somewhere and you’ll know you can get into a PvP fight, but if you go to Queens you know there won’t be any human enemies there?

AM: Right, yes. That’s it exactly.

GC: Okay, well I’m glad I’ve understood. Thanks a lot for your time.

AM: [laughs] No problem, thank you.

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