Even though Ubisoft is the largest video game company in Europe with over 18,000 employees, only 5 developers worked on the revival of The Division 2.
The loot shooter series was nearly buried by Ubisoft itself after The Division 2:
- The Division was a huge hit for Ubisoft and even broke a company record.
- The sequel fell short of the studio’s financial expectations – The Division 2 did not sell as well as expected on PS4 and Xbox One.
- Ubisoft itself admitted in a conference that The Division 2 “did not perform commercially as expected” (via mp1st.com).
Actually, the development of the game should have concluded with the expansion “Warlords of New York” in March 2020 – just a year after release.
Nevertheless, The Division 2 is still being provided with new content to this day. In May 2025, “Fight for Brooklyn,” the second DLC for the game, was released and made players rave.
“We really shouldn’t exist.”
How did the new content for The Division 2 come about? On August 23, Palle Hoffstein from Massive Entertainment commented on this. He is one of the developers who revived the shooter. In a post on X, he reveals that a comparatively tiny team was responsible for the restart of The Division 2.
“I was involved in two major turnarounds: with Rainbow Six Siege and The Division 2. It’s great to have been part of both. But we had 5 people to restart Division 2. Five! What were we thinking? Oh, it was fun,” he writes on X.
Since The Division is still a popular franchise (and Ubisoft is no small studio with over 18,000 employees), this number seems quite absurd.
The developer also provides the reason for this small team. “Studios plan their staffing years in advance to ensure that everyone is allocated and busy,” he explains.
We created a problem by becoming a team that required positions that were not on anyone’s plans. We really shouldn’t exist.
Palle Hoffstein
Hoffstein also states that he and his small team had no interest in just giving the game “one or two more years.” “The goal we believed we could achieve was to build something bigger and lasting,” he says in the post. Since the shooter is still receiving updates 6 years after release, this plan seems to have worked out.
- On Steam, you can currently get the Standard Edition of The Division 2 for only €5.99, but only until September 1, 2025.
While The Division 2 has risen from the dead, many fans are waiting for any signs of part 3. It has at least been announced that a sequel is to come. The Division 3 is therefore just one of 23 sequels of games that fans have been waiting for forever.
