The Division is now an established loot shooter, but as the developers revealed, it almost became a completely different game.
In an official video on YouTube two developers from Massive Entertainment – Drew Rechner (Creative Director) and Fredrik Thylader (Game Director) – talked about the development and origins of The Division and played the loot shooter.
During the video, the two developers discuss the combat system of the game, and Drew Rechner explains that The Division was a completely different game in its early days.
The Division originally omitted shooter aspects
What exactly do the developers say? Rechner explains that they had a principle for the fights that they called “OPE”. It stands for “Observe, Plan, Execute”.
“OPE” describes the moment when you enter a large hall in The Division for example, filled with enemies and first analyze the opponents and the room itself from cover, briefly consider how to proceed, and then initiate the actual fight against the previously unalerted enemies.
However, Rechner points out that it took a while for them to reach this combat loop. The Division was originally very different: “When we started working on The Division, it was still an MMO like World of Warcraft. The skill component did not exist at that time. There were no traditional shooter aspects.”
Fredrik Thylander adds that The Division used to even have a so-called hotbar (also: “action bar”). A hotbar is the center of control in many MMORPGs and is usually displayed as a bar at the edge of the screen. It serves the purpose of using abilities and items.
Today, the “The Division” series is among the best loot shooters on the market and has been captivating countless players for many years. The developers managed to successfully combine the MMO principle of looting and leveling with shooter gameplay. Some gamers believe that even current successful titles can learn a thing or two from Ubisoft’s loot shooter: Gamer plays ARC Raiders for about 400 hours, then understands through The Division 2 what the extraction shooter lacks
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