It’s enough to have Carlson frothing on air. An opening cinematic questions where you have your gun, and notes the goal is to “unite us.” Through guns. That’s referencing an absurdly silent protagonist draped in camo with a swelling backpack fit for anyone who religiously watched each episode of Nat Geo’s Doomsday Preppers. “There’s a new sheriff in town,” spouts the dialog. The White House is a base of operations, turned from an American symbol into a weapons stronghold. Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 is out now £52.In “Division” lore, before he disappeared, the President signed an order activating a group of government-funded nationalists to legally gun down looters in hopes of restoring order. They are the part of the game, in other words, where you’re encouraged to think of yourself as a villain. But the real value of the Dark Zones is that they’re the places where The Division 2 finally agrees with itself. Ubisoft has grandly styled this side of the game a “social experiment”, and it’s certainly a thrill to meet other players in the undergrowth, never quite sure of their intentions. It’s possible, here, to betray other players, pinching their spoils or ambushing them for kicks. The closest it gets, perhaps, is in the returning Dark Zones, quarantined areas where you’ll encounter AI opponents and other players, all searching for top-grade gear that must be extracted by calling a helicopter. The Division 2 takes place after the country’s collapse, but it operates on much the same landscape of systematic discrimination, and it has nothing of worth to say about it. For some, the US is already a place where harsh social divisions are maintained by violence, where straying into the wrong region as a member of the wrong demographic can get you killed. There’s a strong sense that the game is ducking such conversations because it is, in fact, a celebration of weaponised inequality. It’s dotted with reaction-baiting nods to hot topics – there’s mention of “walls” and “swamps” – but it’s reluctant to engage with these parallels in depth. However, the numbing emphasis on loot prevents the game from investigating such ironies, and, though there’s plenty of backstory to dig into, the writing is Ubisoft’s characteristic blend of provocative and squeamish. There are some fascinating ironies in the recreation of landmarks, such as the American History Museum: one mission has you fighting through a mock-up of a Vietnam battlefield, simulation engulfing simulation in a flash of propane. Washington’s architecture has been splendidly reimagined, its roads transformed into mazes by abandoned vehicles, its buildings delicate studies in devastation. It allows you to enjoy the combat without spending hours amassing the means to compete.Ĭall in the choppers … The Division 2. This serves as a vital stress-relief valve. There’s also a basic head-to-head mode, waged on small sealed-off environments, in which power gaps between players are sportingly erased. You can team up with other players everywhere in Washington, and while the online networking has a few hiccups – like being teleported to another player when you want them to come to you – it’s largely reliable. The game can be played solo, as it scales the odds in each mission to the number of participants, but it’s more enjoyable when tackled in company. The experience is lifted above mere gunplay by quasi-magical support gadgets, which include drones you can send to pester dug-in snipers and gel launchers that bog attackers down. As in the elderly Gears of War series, players slide around cunning arrangements of chest-high cover, trying to get the drop on opponents who range from resilient juggernauts to sneaky flankers. The glut of missions is exhausting but at least keeps you moving around the city, and the firefights themselves are quite engrossing. The bombardment of loot never abates, but you learn to filter it out, breaking down unwanted weapons for materials or combining them to pool their traits. You’ve no option but to participate in this churn, as the city is split into regions designed for characters with a certain calibre of gear. New varieties are thrown at your feet from moment to moment you equip them after a brief thumb-wrestle with some headache-inducing menus, only to find another, slightly better shotgun in the next room along. Another consequence is that the game’s vaunted nuggets of equipment soon blur into one. Like its predecessor, which was set in a post-pandemic New York, it needs its landscape of vulnerable survivors and violent discontents to keep you trundling away at its upgrade treadmill. One consequence of this format is that The Division 2’s struggle for civilisation can never be won. The bombardment of loot never abates … The Division 2.
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