Ubisoft has a lot riding on The Division: not only is the game the first in a brand-new IP, it's the publisher's first shot at the "shared-world" genre. With Destiny becoming one of Activision's biggest franchises ever, it's no surprise that Ubisoft would want to throw its hat into the ring — but, after nearly three years of development, can The Division possibly live up to the ridiculous success of its competition?

As it stands, there's really no way to answer that: The Division is supposedly the first piece in a much larger puzzle, and Ubisoft has plans to support the game for years to come. That being said, many argued that Destiny, which was marketed in much the same way, wasn't necessarily worth buying when it first launched.

Thankfully, that's not the case here: while the publisher's take on New York City certainly has room to grow over the next several months, Ubisoft has made sure that The Division is a fully-realized experience that can go toe-to-toe with just about any other open-world game on the market.

Unfortunately, it's clear that story was never meant to be the focus of The Division. Players start the game by customizing their very own Agent, a member of a secret government directive designed to maintain peace and assure the continuity of government should society collapse. Following a massive biological attack on Black Friday (and a brief tour of duty in Brooklyn), your Agent is flown into Manhattan to re-establish order and track down those responsible for the city's descent into chaos.

The main problem with The Division's attempt at storytelling is that, by the time the credits roll, nothing really seems to matter. Completing missions doesn't change the world in any way, there's never a shortage of random thugs wandering the streets, and the game even admits that its conclusion doesn't wrap anything up. Optional story vignettes help flesh things out a bit, but it's almost too much — trying to make sense of the story without these optional videos is next to impossible. It's a mess, even by Tom Clancy standards, and it's clear that Ubisoft wasn't really concerned with crafting a gripping narrative.

It's not all bad, though. Many of The Division's side missions act as their own self-contained stories, and those that do can be surprisingly emotional. It's world-building on a level that few other studios would even attempt ... it's just a shame that The Division doesn't focus on these moments more often.

If you've played a third-person shooter in the past decade or so, you'll be right at home in The Division: gameplay is all about taking cover, shooting the bad guys, and moving toward the next objective marker. It may sound generic at first, but The Division focuses on two mechanics to keep things interesting: loot and player abilities.

Ubisoft's latest is more Borderlands than Destiny: players are constantly upgrading and modding new weapons, and it's rare that you'll hold onto a particular piece of equipment for more than a few hours. On the other hand, player abilities are more permanent: upgrading the game's central hub unlocks new gadgets like healing stations or automated turrets, and these skills continue to evolve and expand as players complete missions and gather resources.

What's surprising about The Division is that, unlike Bungie's shared-world shooter, much of the game takes place in a relatively traditional open world. Main missions are the real star of the show, taking players through longer, combat-focused missions and offering up the best rewards. Side missions tend to be much shorter, instead focusing on a single puzzle or activity that can be completed in just a few minutes.

It's the game's relative lack of variety that'll turn off some players. The Division has quite a bit to do – most players will sink 30-40 hours into the campaign – but much of that experience will be spent doing the same thing over and over. Side missions in particular only draw from a few select gameplay variants, and The Division is best enjoyed in smaller bursts rather than extended six-hour sessions.

The Division's absolutely stellar level design helps curb the repetition somewhat, but it's the multiplayer that'll truly keep players engaged. Teaming up with a group of other Agents is a blast, and the enemy layouts and level scaling make the game's core missions feel completely different from the solo experience. Even better, the game is tuned so that even a group of random strangers can succeed — you won't have to worry if your buddies are online when you want to tackle a tough mission.

Sadly, there's not much for players to do once they hit the Level 30 cap. Replaying missions can be fun, but the absence of a larger raid-type mission feels like a strange choice. In terms of standard gameplay, once the final mission comes to a close, that's pretty much it — the only thing left for players to do is enter the Dark Zone.

Ever since the game was announced, the Dark Zone was one of The Division's biggest selling points: instead of a traditional multiplayer suite, The Division would section off a portion of its world where players could go toe-to-toe with other Agents in addition to standard enemies. It's a genuinely unique sort of mode, one that's never been tried before in a game like this — but, in its current form, the Dark Zone is more about looking for action than participating in it.

The choice of whether to fight against other Agents or not isn't really a choice: unless you're fine with fighting waves of the same randomly generated enemies, you'll have to pull the trigger on a fellow player. Doing so can be a lot of fun — ambushing a group of players as they try to extract gear is something you simply can't find in other games, and the same thing goes for hunting down Rogue Agents — but these sorts of moments are few and far between. If your time in the Dark Zone is anything like ours, you'll be running around looking for something to do more than anything else.

The Dark Zone could be the breakout way to play The Division — someday. Adding in missions or random events could help the mode feel like a worthwhile effort, and a few traditional multiplayer modes couldn't hurt — long story short, much like the rest of The Division, there's a lot of potential in the Dark Zone. Hopefully, Ubisoft can make the mode a bit more interesting in the coming months.

As with any online-only game, network connections can make or break the experience. In our experience, playing on the Xbox One has been relatively smooth — save for a single server error and a few short bouts of lag, The Division has held up surprisingly well during its first week online. Other glitches (such as clipping and awkward enemy A.I.) are a bit more prevalent, but it's nothing that'll ruin your time with the game.

The Division may not look as good as the first few tech demos made it seem, but Ubisoft's take on a nearly deserted New York still looks great. It's the attention to detail that really sells the game's atmosphere — piles of trash litter the street, snow turns to slush near drainage pipes and particle effects (particularly fire) look fantastic. Even ECHO playbacks, the holographic recordings touted in the game's first trailers, manage to make an impact.

The Division's sound design isn't nearly as memorable, though it does a perfectly good job of selling the game's world ... though you may want to avoid the game's voice acting as much as possible. Save for a select few NPCs, it's generally pretty terrible.

Does The Division feel like the start of something bigger? Yes: its world and mission structure are ripe for expansion, and there's a very good chance that the game will feel like a very different experience in just a few months from now.

Is The Division worth picking up now, even before its inevitable expansions? Yes: Ubisoft has managed to craft a stunningly detailed world with a ton of content for players to work their way through. Sure, it's not perfect — the story's a letdown, there's some serious repetition and the Dark Zone doesn't feel quite up-to-snuff yet — but what's here is a surprisingly fun open-world action game with a more tactical feel than most. Better yet, it's a full game — not just a tease for an expensive Season Pass.

So far, Ubisoft's shared-world shooter is off to a great start — with any luck, The Division will only get better from here.


This review is based off an Xbox One copy provided by Ubisoft.

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