The highlight of the beta of The Division: the Dark Zone
The brief story and few side missions were not the reasons why the beta captivated so many testers. Especially the Dark Zone was regarded as the highlight and received overwhelmingly positive feedback. While you could handle the story well alone, in the Dark Zone, you depend on a team of up to four people to survive for long.
Praiseworthy: You can enter this PvP area almost without loading times. Overall, you hardly have to be annoyed about loading times in this game. Only at the game start is there a longer duration, but that is completely normal.
The most exciting aspect of the Dark Zone is probably the fact that the game doesn’t dictate who the bad guy is and who your teammate is. Everyone can decide for themselves, which creates a thrilling tension and psychological gameplay. Can you trust your counterpart?
In the first few days, this was incredibly exciting. However, it became apparent that lone wolves will have problems in the Dark Zone. How Ubisoft will address this issue remains to be seen. Currently, it seems that only frustration and tears can be predicted for many.
But back to the gameplay of the Dark Zone: you can’t just shoot enemies (whether controlled by humans or AI), grab the loot, and dash off. No! First, you have to transport the contaminated items out of the zone with a helicopter at extraction points. Herein lies the danger of falling into an ambush and losing all loot before it can be picked up.
Often, I found that all agents were quite relaxed; everyone wanted to drop off and secure their loot – then everyone went their separate ways. Only rarely was there a troublemaker who was ruthlessly shot by everyone involved. Alone, one is almost helpless in such situations.
From time to time, you also encounter campers. You can eliminate them easily if you play it smart.
We probably have to wait for the main game
What remains in the end? Especially regarding the story, we are all still in the dark. What is waiting for us remains to be seen. The Dark Zone provides at least short-term fun; how it looks after a few weeks remains to be seen.
Another important point is the amount of content available at launch. After all, new DLCs have already been announced – so it seems that The Division can provide content even in the following months and keep hobby agents engaged.
The servers ran pretty stable during the Closed Beta on all platforms; considering that, one must remain skeptical, especially given all the trouble of Assassins Creed: Unity. But so far, Ubisoft’s servers leave a good impression.
Currently, the cocktail of MMO, shooter, RPG, and open world seems to taste great. Hopefully, this impression holds. Or what do you think?
