Division 2
This is what happened in 2020 with The Division 2: At The Division 2, the year began surprisingly strong. At this point, the tactical shooter seemed quite dead in January 2020. A big overhaul was expected, but no one knew how The Division 2 would continue at the beginning of 2020.
The release hype from 2019 had long faded: the campaign had been really successful. However, the tactical shooter showed weaknesses in the endgame. The items were poorly readable, and there was rarely useful loot. Some ideas for the endgame, like the raids or puzzle zones, had failed, and PvP had never worked properly.
However, in February 2020, the big expansion “Warlords of New York” was surprisingly announced, set to launch in March. Additionally, Episode 3 also came in February. Furthermore, Ubisoft distributed the base game of Division 2 for free through various channels. Tens of thousands gladly took it: they could snag a blockbuster game that was just one year old for free. This apparently paid off.
Suddenly, The Division 2 was back on the map.
Thus, The Division 2, which seemed dead in January 2020, suddenly looked like a hot game in February 2020.
This gave The Division 2 a real boost at the beginning of the year. Additionally, due to the outbreak of the Corona virus, The Division 2 suddenly appeared much more realistic.
Ultimately, however, The Division 2 underwent the same fate in 2020 as it did at launch in 2019. The story campaign was devoured by players, but the game quickly ran out of steam in the endgame. Once again, criticism arose about the game systems: there were too many bugs, loot quality and balancing were off, and the endgame provided too little motivation.
The hype from March 2020 gradually faded. Throughout the rest of the year, several updates and new content were released, but The Division 2 did not gain significant momentum during 2020.
This is how The Division 2 continues in 2021: At the moment, Season 4 is running in The Division 2. One is hunting “Faye Lau”. How the tactical shooter will continue outside of this normal plan is not known.
It is questionable whether Massive will bring another major expansion after “Warlords of New York” or will work on The Division 3. According to statements from Ubisoft, they were rather disappointed with the financial results of “The Division 2”.
It seems they have not succeeded in explaining to players why they should purchase a new The Division 2, after The Division 1 has been improved over years and is currently in a strong state.
This is the state of The Division 2 before 2021: With The Division 2, there is a feeling that since the release of part 1, one has always been playing the same game. Both parts have gone through a similar development: the shooters thrive on their atmosphere and a great campaign. The gameplay is simply fun. However, the MMO elements do not function properly.
And when the game finally gets patched and looks good after months, almost all players have already left and moved on.
The Division 2 also suffers from the problem that the episodes only brought new content but no new modes. This led to reduced long-term playability compared to The Division 1. For The Division 2, they aimed to fix this with “endless modes” in 2020, but so far, they have not brought the hoped-for turnaround.
Throughout 2020, some other games dominated the discussion in the gaming world more than The Division. Especially since The Division 2016 had little competition in the shooter genre. Destiny would often take breaks. Today, titles like Call of Duty: Warzone or Fortnite constantly dominate the news – they have simply not gone away since their release.
In The Division 2, it seems questionable before 2021 whether the game series still has a significant future at Ubisoft. In 2020, players were pleasantly surprised early in the year with “Warlords of New York”. However, such a pleasant surprise seems to be far off for 2021. It is unclear whether Ubisoft still believes in the franchise. The publisher is also on the verge of a new era.
In retrospect, it feels like The Division, as a “co-op shooter with a story focus” that runs according to the Ubisoft formula, works well. However, those who expect to spend hundreds or thousands of hours with The Division 2, as with The Division 1, will encounter limits.
On the last page, we summarize the situation with the loot shooters.
