Another behind-closed-doors presentation at E3 was Ubisoft’s upcoming online, third-person MMO shooter, Tom Clancy’s The Division. I got my first glimpse of The Division at last year’s E3 in another behind-closed-doors presentation. This time, Ubisoft provided a more comprehensive look at the game, but the demo was still not playable this year.
For an online shooter, the storyline premise is quite deep and interesting. In The Division, players portray agents in the Division, an autonomous unit of tactical agents. This division of elite agents is organized to save society. A devastating and mysterious pandemic virus has swept over New York City. The Division is called to action stop bandits and save civilians. The New York City setting looks massive and ridiculously awesome. Per the developers at the presentation, all of New York City is the open-world sandbox in the game. I am not sure how much of New York City you will be able to explore in the actual game; but based on Ubisoft’s re-creation of Chicago in Watch Dogs, I have no doubt it will be an impressive and huge city map.
The video showcased a team of Division agents making their way through a subway. The demo featured some harrowing images of dead bodies of civilians in body bags and under tarps, littering the subway entrances. Division agents have a data collection tool called ECHO. ECHO renders moments frozen in time to learn information about your environments and the deadly virus. The ECHO tool basically creates holographic freeze-framed images of past events. In the New York subway, the ECHO tool re-creates a moments of civilians rushing out of a train in droves, trying to get to safety.
The Division agents check their location and make their way to the streets. This is where we get a look at some of the third-person shooter combat. The gameplay looks like it will be a fun and strategic shooter. The Division appears to have a good cover system as well. Agents have a lot of fun weapons and items to use at their finger-tips. There’s an aerial drone that flashes a strong and powerful light to disorient bandits. According to Ubisoft, you will be able to customize everything from your weapons and tools to your backpack. In addition, the demo showed how all of the agent skills are upgradeable in the game.
Further segments in the video showcased a mission to get supplies and to smoke out bandits. There are still some highly infected areas of New York, so players will need to be extra careful in those parts. The new-gen graphics and visuals created by the Snowdrop Engine look really tight, crisp and beautiful.
Tom Clancy’s The Division is due out on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Windows PC in 2015.
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