In the shooter The Division 2, players have been discovering clues about strange yellow rubber ducks that somehow look suspicious since the release. What’s behind this? And what does Massive itself say about it?
What does The Division 2 have to do with ducks? It seems to be a running gag in The Division 2. Yellow rubber ducks are scattered throughout the game world, found in strange locations.
The ducks are often conspicuously arranged, as if they are hiding or have done something wrong.
A player found two ducks sitting in a heart and kissing.
Particularly striking is a top duck sitting in front of a pile of bottom ducks with the graffiti “ProDUCKtive” in the background – the English word for “productive.”
Even in a devastated city, people are having fun
What’s up with that? An employee from Massive has now commented on reddit and said that it’s an insider joke among the developers. They did it just for fun.
There are situations in the game where players find a corpse and a rubber duck nearby that looks quite guilty.
One of the developers wrote in a Dev Blog post: “A fun thing we came up with was to place ducks everywhere. You can see them in the beta and it became a big deal for the fans.”
From a game logic perspective, it makes sense not to take everything so seriously. The environment developers ensure that these little gags are not forced upon players, but that the world feels believable and coherent.
Environment artist Sonja Christoph said: “One must remember that there are still people living in this world. They are rebuilding this devastated city. I do believe that they would at least try to have a little fun doing so.”
From the developers’ perspective, the inhabitants of Washington D.C. are thus arranging the ducks in the game world to enjoy themselves.
Are players reacting? There is a dedicated Twitter channel for The Division 2, Division 2 Duck Hunt, which is solely focused on finding pictures of rubber ducks in The Division 2. However, it’s been a bit quiet since April.
Nevertheless, players continue to rediscover the ducks of The Division 2 and will chuckle and wonder about them.
