The 11 things that The Division 2 now wants to do new and differently

The Division 2 has finally been announced. Since the E3 conference of Microsoft and Ubisoft, many pieces of information, both large and small, about the upcoming online shooter have come to light. We are trying to summarize the most important details for you: What changes compared to the first part?

On March 15, 2019, it will happen – The Division 2 will be released for Xbox One, PS4, and PC. Many details were shared during the last E3, whether about gameplay, the open world, or the story.

What is changing? What new weapons, talents, and skills can we expect? We summarize the 11 most important innovations from The Division 2 for you here.

1. New city with a new season: Washington D.C.

The most obvious innovation is the change of location and the time jump: The story of The Division 2 will take place 6 months after the events in Manhattan. The location of the action is the U.S. capital Washington D.C.: The city is on the brink of civil war, and the Division is supposed to bring the situation under control.

You can find all the background information about the downfall of D.C. with us.

2. Specializations and Signature Weapons

One of the innovations that was immediately noticeable in the first leak: The agents had a grenade launcher and a crossbow in their arsenal. Initially, it was speculated whether these might just be additional weapon classes until Massive released some initial information.

The weapons are part of the new specializations and are called signature weapons: The signature skills known from The Division 1 are now a thing of the past.

Specializations are part of the new endgame content that will be particularly emphasized in The Division 2.

What are specializations? You unlock the specializations by reaching the maximum level. Each brings its own signature weapon and skill mods and is tailored to a specific playstyle.

Each of these specializations represents its own progress tree, which can be further expanded. You can switch between these freely and enhance all to the maximum, so they provide additional engagement.

The 3 specializations will be available to you:

The Survivalist: This will probably be able to use traps and status effects to control the environment. Its signature weapon will be a precision crossbow with explosive bolts.
The Demolitionist: This is intended to create chaos on the battlefield and flush out opponents from their positions. For this, it has an M32A1 grenade launcher as a signature weapon.
The Sharpshooter: Equipped with a powerful .50 caliber sniper rifle, the sharpshooter can pose a deadly threat to your enemies from a distance.

Important: The new specializations will have no impact on the gear system. Gear sets will still exist, just not in the same form as in the first part.

3. New Skills

In addition to a few old familiar skills, there will also be new skills in The Division 2. So far, Massive has presented a

Drone with remote control,
a chem launcher with various chemicals,
and the “Nest”, which sends out dangerous mini-drones that can also target weak points.

The new skills open up interesting, tactical options. For instance, the chem launcher has explosive fumes or “corrosive acids for repairing nanobots” in stock. What exactly repairing nanobots entails is still unknown to us.

For more details, visit the official The Division 2 website from Ubisoft.

4. Variety of Enemies, Time-To-Kill, Weak Points

In terms of combat, The Division 2 wants to have learned a lot from its predecessor. It aims to minimize “bullet sponge” enemies and make combat more intuitive.

The combat should feel better: Enemies and players are still robust compared to other shooters, but are no longer as tough as they were in The Division 1. Animations and enemy reactions are to be improved, and the weak points have been significantly increased to reward precise shooting.
Destructible Armor: The new bosses will have destructible armors. This is intended to promote realism and explain why they can withstand so much. You will now see how individual bullets can cause damage to the armor.
More Diversity among Enemies: In The Division 1, all factions had nearly identical enemy classes like rushers, snipers, and tanks. This should now come to an end; each faction should have its own enemy types that are significantly different from the others. The AI behavior should also vary from faction to faction.

5. “Endgame first” mentality and more variety for The Division 2

Massive has taken to heart the criticism raised during the release of the first part. There will definitely not be any lack of engagement in the endgame this time.

New 8-player raids: In addition to the confirmed return of the Dark Zone there will also be 8-player raids for the first time in The Division. The first raid is expected to arrive shortly after release and will present a challenging task. More information will follow, but Massive is quite sure that nobody will master the first raid solo at the beginning.

The various specializations and many more activities should ensure that players will have plenty to do even after completing the main campaign. Additionally, there will be free DLCs to ensure the community isn’t split.

6. The game world should be more in focus

More interesting open world: The significantly more diverse game world is intended to prevent players from feeling monotony while moving through Washington D.C. The U.S. capital offers a greater variety of locations than the center of Manhattan, which is dominated by skyscrapers and economic buildings.

In contrast, D.C. offers government buildings, residential areas, and more landscapes.

5 settlements in Washington: There will be control points that are either under the control of civilians or occupied by enemy factions. Your task will be to defend the civilians’ control points and drive out the enemy factions from the other control points.

Your actions are supposed to have a direct impact on the game world.

7. Brand Sets, Weapon and Gear Talents

In The Division 2, there will be what are known as Brand Sets, sets with their own brands, identifiable by specific logos. Apparently, each piece of armor will have a “branding”.

The Brand Sets are essentially similar to the Gear Sets. If you equip one part of a Brand Set, the first bonus is activated. If you have two parts, bonuses 1 and 2 are active. With 3 parts, you unlock all bonuses.

These are also cross-compatible; a purple Brand Mask can be combined with the same High-End Brand Vest, as rarity and gear tiers do not matter. Brand Sets will have a specific selection of talents and attributes that fit the desired playstyles.

Firearms, stamina, and electronics have been removed as primary attributes! Your gear alone determines your respective values.

The known Brand Set parts so far:

Overlord Armaments: +7.5% armor bonus, +5.0% weapon damage, +10.0% damage against elites.
China Light Industries Corporation: +8.0% shotgun damage, +10.0% total resistance, +10.0% skill haste.
Richter&Kaiser GmbH: +20.0% pistol damage, +15.0% shield strength, +10.0% total resistance.
Airaldi Holdings: +5.0% sniper damage, +10.0% headshot damage, +10.0% precision.
Wyvern Wear: +7.0% crit damage, +5.0% headshot damage, +10.0% crit chance.
Sokolov Concern: +10.0% SMG damage, +8.0% crit damage, +10.0% crit chance.

Basically, the weapons, gear, and talents are structured similarly to the predecessor. Differences exist in the numbers, the amount of talents, and their requirements.

All known weapon talents from The Division 2:

Pyromaniac: Damage against burning enemies is increased by 15%. Requires a minimum of 10% weapon damage.
Loaded for Bear: Reloading an empty magazine increases weapon damage by 20% for 5 seconds.
Close and Personal: Killing an enemy up close doubles the damage of the next shot.
Hemorrhage: Killing a target affected by a bleeding effect increases the crit chance for the entire group by 25% for 10 seconds.
Kill confirmed: Headshot kills grant a +10% bonus damage, stacking up to 10 times. All non-headshot hits reset the bonus. Requires over 140% headshot damage.
Sadist: Damage against enemies affected by a bleeding effect is increased by 15%. Requires +15% crit chance.

All known gear talents:

Devastating: +5% weapon damage.
Insulated: +25% protection against hazards.
Rapid: Cooldown is reduced by 10%.
Surgical: +8% crit chance.
Vital: +20% health points.
Hardened: +10% armor.
Critical: +8% crit damage.

However, you should keep in mind that many numbers and talents can change before the release. Here you can read the English versions of the talent descriptions (via reddit). We have translated the talents using typical Division terms.

8. Renewed Inventory – Mod System Completely Overhauled

The inventory system caused constant frustration in The Division 1. Regardless of the platform, it was cumbersome to use, sometimes faulty, and most annoyingly: It was constantly overloaded!

Before every new patch, the calls for more inventory space and more storage in the stash were extremely loud. That is to come to an end in The Division 2.

One of the biggest innovations: Once you unlock certain mods, they no longer take up space in your inventory. You can attach them to your gear at any time.

Weapon mods will be unlockable only once during gameplay. From that point onward, you can attach them to your gear as many times as you wish. Unlike the mods from the first part, the weapon mods in The Division 2 will also have drawbacks. Additionally, these will have fixed values.

Farming mods will therefore become a thing of the past.

9. New Clan System

In The Division 2, players will have the opportunity to join a clan. Especially with a view towards the 8-player activities, this should promote communication and teamwork.

This will fulfill a long-held wish for many players.

10. More choices and extent in personalizing your agents

Even in the first part, there was a fairly extensive selection of clothes and skins for your agents. The Division 2 aims to improve this and provide you with significantly more options.

More skins for your gear: In gameplay clips, slots for skins on knee pads and gloves were already seen. The skin feature was previously limited to backpacks and weapons.

Progress = Badass look? Moreover, it should be more evident how far a given agent has progressed. The higher the level and specialization, the more this should be noticeable based on the gear.

11. Health Points, Armor, and Healing

The armor system, which provides agents with an additional bar above the health point display, is new as well. This new system replaces first aid kits with “armor/shield pieces”. When used, these restore both health and armor.

The healing effect will occur over time, not immediately as it was previously. Once the player loses all of their armor, this will be indicated with a warning message. Armor regenerates only outside of combat.

Health points will also slowly regenerate in combat. This only happens if you take no damage for a while, just like before.

We are excited to see what further information awaits us in the future. So far, everything sounds promising and seems to be a consistent build on the experiences from The Division 1.