During the appearance of The Division 2 at E3, Creative Director Julian Gerighty and Game Director Mathias Karlson openly chatted in an interview with YouTuber Skill Up about raids, PvP, and a possible comeback of Survival.
At E3, Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment offered visitors the opportunity to test a demo of The Division 2. YouTuber Skill Up was also able to conduct an interview with Creative Director Julian Gerighty and Game Director Mathias Karlson.
They answered questions in detail and even hinted at a possible comeback of the Survival mode. They also commented on other old features, such as the Resistance mode, Underground, and PvP. We summarize everything for you.
DLCs – One of the biggest lessons, according to the Creative Director
Problem with paid DLCs: One of the biggest insights from the past, according to Julian Gerighty, was that the DLC system from The Division 1 was a mistake. This model with season pass and time exclusivity for PC and Xbox One divided the community and had negative effects.
This mistake should definitely not be repeated.
Year 1 free: That this statement is serious is shown by the plan for the first year of The Division 2: 3 DLCs with story expansions, new areas, and additional features are planned, completely free of charge.
You should be able to dive into the open world of The Division 2
The developers repeatedly emphasize how important the game world in The Division 2 is. Not only will it be about 20% larger than in its predecessor, but it should also offer much more life and be more dynamic.
Not just a pastime – Activities in the open world: They want to create activities for The Division 2 that are not just mere busywork; they want to make it believable and thus create a better experience.
New checkpoints: Part of this are the new checkpoints in the game world. You can assist civilians in capturing them, but you must also fear that they can be retaken by hostile factions. This is intended to be a kind of meta-game that runs independently of missions and story.
Will The Division 2 be easier? Not if the developers have their way
During and after E3, concerns arose that The Division 2 might be simplified for casual players. The two developers do not see it that way. They are merely trying to make the different elements more accessible.
Expansion of RPG elements: At the same time, they want to expand the RPG elements in depth and breadth, creating more opportunities for players. Part of this are the new brand sets, which should also allow for the creation of individual builds.
These will exist alongside a feature that was already present in the predecessor: gear sets! The developers repeatedly confirm that gear sets will definitely be present in The Division 2 and will also benefit from the brand sets.
Raids as an endgame activity for hardcore players
There was no concrete information about raids, but it was emphasized that these are created exclusively for hardcore agents and represent the ultimate challenge.
The raids will be significantly different from anything played before in The Division: Paying attention to what is happening on the battlefield in front of you will not be enough. It’s about discovering how to proceed best. Exploration seems to play a role here.
The raids are part of the endgame focus that Massive has committed to The Division 2.
Resistance, Last Stand, Underground – What will happen to features from The Division 1?
Many players are already wondering which elements from the predecessor will also be included in The Division 2. Specific details cannot be provided, but Gerighty did state: Not all features from The Division will be present at the launch of The Division 2.
This is apparently not possible, as many of these modes were developed over the course of 2 years of development for The Division 1 and therefore require a lot of time.
The Division 2 will be much larger at launch: At the same time, they emphasize that the successor will be significantly more extensive at release than The Division 1 and in every respect. Game world, activities, story – everything should be more extensive.
Same team as with The Division 1: This does not mean that there is no chance for old features and modes. They simply do not yet know when these will come or whether they may already be included at launch in slightly modified form.
The same development team is at work and will therefore know what changes will be necessary to bring them back into the game.
What about Survival?
Gerighty expressed himself a bit more directly regarding the Survival mode, which, in his opinion, did not receive enough attention due to the aforementioned DLC model, as only a portion of the players had access to it.
What was Survival again? In Survival mode, you must fend for yourself without your regular equipment through a blizzard in Manhattan to reach the Dark Zone. Hunger, thirst, and sickness will challenge you. You can at least temporarily hold this off with medicine and food, but sooner or later the virus will take you down.
Therefore, you need to find better equipment in time and advance into the Dark Zone to extract yourself along with important information about the disease.
Survival could come to The Division 2 “someday”: Gerighty himself is a big fan and loves the stories that can arise through Survival. He would be “very surprised” if we do not see this mode in The Division 2 someday.
The balancing in PvP
Again, there is no concrete information on PvP modes or the Dark Zone.
Balancing – An important point for the developers: They want to deliver a similar player experience in both PvP and PvE and are using all available tools to achieve this. At the same time, they want to elevate the experience of the Dark Zone to a new level.
So far, there is no final system; everything is still on the table. Possible variants could include a complete separation of gear into separate PvP and PvE values. Normalization, as has been the case in the Last Stand and Skirmish modes, is also an option.
Currently, everything is open and in development.
You can watch the full interview of Skill Up and the Division developers here.
What do you think of the developers’ statements? Can you live with the (at least temporarily) missing features from the first part?
