In The Division, Ubisoft looks forward to a positive future.
Ubisoft’s and Massive’s shared-world shooter The Division was THE game in the spring of this year. After beta records, overwhelming sales successes followed. It seemed that nothing could stop this long-awaited game.
In the end, the game did collapse – after just a few months. Expectations were too high, and there were too many bugs. Exploits, cheats, and hacks had a devastating effect on player morale. Massive bravely countered with numerous updates and hotfixes, but ultimately patched the game to “death”, as was frequently scornfully read in the community. The low point of this development was reached when Massive itself stated after update 1.3: “Sorry guys, our game isn’t fun!”
But players are coming back
From mid-June to October 25, nothing happened in-game. Massive used the time to engage extensively with the community and to work on update 1.4 – and it paid off. The major mistakes of the past were corrected, and the agents received the update mostly positively, with The Division now ready for the future.
And these efforts were successful: Ubisoft’s Anne Blondel now announced that since 1.4, the number of active players has returned to launch levels. The reason given is that people are so impressed with 1.4 and how persistently Massive has worked on and improved the game.
She admits that many players had turned to The Division earlier than expected. Therefore, a decision had to be made: “Do we continue as before and deliver new content, or do we pause for a while, fix everything, and continue with more content once the game runs as it should?”
The decision-makers chose the more elaborate option, making the community “super happy”. However, the disappointment of the agents was also felt, as they were displeased with the delays of the upcoming DLCs.
According to Blondel, not only are player numbers improving, but also the community’s attitude. They are beginning to view the game more positively again. She expects that in the future even more players will (re)find their way back to The Division.
Are you also back in action?
On December 20, Survival will be released on PS4. PC and “Xbox One” agents can already play it. Here you can find the spectacular trailer for Survival.
