For The Division, there has been no new weekly ISAC mission for three months. What happened to it?
In April, the first ISAC mission started. Since then, the orange watch on your agent’s wrist would receive a fresh challenge weekly, for which you had seven days to complete. We reported every Thursday about what tasks and what rewards ISAC had in store for you.
But suddenly in September, it came to an end. The ISAC videos that Ubisoft posted online every week also came to an abrupt stop. These videos provided a backstory to the missions that could only be experienced this way – you wouldn’t learn anything about it in-game.
During the last “State of the Game” livestreams, many agents repeatedly asked in the Twitch chat: “Where are the new ISAC missions? What happened to it?”
Will the ISAC missions return?
We do not have a current statement from Massive regarding this question, but the community developer Hamish Bode replied in a stream a few weeks ago: The ISAC missions will return after the Survival DLC is released.
In the meantime, this expansion has gone live on all platforms, and since 20.12. also on PS4. However, there is still no trace of these weekly missions. Since the last ISAC mission was on 8.9., one can speculate that Survival was originally supposed to be released on 15.9.
Since the developers have not addressed this topic for a while, it is unclear whether Bode’s statement is still valid. It is possible that this endgame activity has been completely removed. Perhaps Massive is fundamentally changing the ISAC mission. But it could also be that it will simply return at a later date as usual.
Is the ISAC mission even necessary?
The ISAC mission has always been controversial for three reasons:
- The accompanying videos from Ubisoft have little to do with the actual game. If you don’t watch them on YouTube, you won’t learn about the ISAC story. It would have been nice to have a feature to experience this story in-game as well.
- The tasks were rarely challenging. Most of the time, you completed them casually while playing the game.
- The rewards barely appealed to players. Over the months, however, the rewards were changed: weekly, there was an exclusive cosmetic item. However, only collectors were interested in them.
Therefore, the question arises: Has anyone missed the ISAC mission? What added value can it provide to the game?
Updates 1.4 and 1.5 brought meaningful changes to The Division. Many activities are now available in endgame that are relevant and drop high-level items. So there is plenty of variety.
However, there is still a lack of regular motivation to log in weekly. While there are weekly missions, very few will specifically complete their individual tasks. They do not offer any special rewards.
An ISAC mission that presents exciting rewards and tasks would certainly benefit the game. For example, it could be a potential source with an increased chance of named gear – some agents spend countless hours in the game just to farm Barret’s bulletproof vest.
A weekly mission that is a potential source for rare items would certainly bring many agents back to post-apocalyptic New York on a regular basis.
Ending when it’s most exciting
Whether we still need the ISAC videos that Ubisoft regularly posted online is another question. Neither the story nor the acting could convince the community.
A total of 22 episodes have been released so far, which summarize the story of Division technician Simon dealing with the enemy “Asher.” Week after week, enemies had to be defeated or resources collected to support Simon.
In the last two episodes, there was finally some suspense: Our ally Rainer turned out to be Asher. He was able to locate Simon’s hideout and gave him an ultimatum: Either Simon brings him into the ISAC system, or he kills black market dealer Esmay.
And then it ended. After this ultimatum, no further episode was released. If this is the end, it would be extremely unsatisfying.
You can find the last ISAC transmission from 8.9. here.
What do you think? Should the ISAC mission return?
In this article, we present the first ISAC transmission.
