What it means to be an Agent in The Division’s desolate world

The Division is (would you believe it) just under two months away from release, with the delayed beta for the game expected to kick off at the end of this month. There’s a lot we still don’t know about Ubisoft’s own shared-world shooter, with most question surrounding all the bits of gameplay that don’t take part in the treacherous Dark Zone. This latest trailer offers answers to some while also giving us a while three minutes of new gameplay to pull and pick apart.

And that’s what you should do, because there’s a lot to dig through here. Front and centre is The Division’s take on, say, Destiny’s Tower. Unlike the pristine outpost for Guardians that lies ahead in humanity’s future, The Division will task you with rebuilding mother base with a host of engineers, scientists, doctors and armed specialists – to rekindle hope for humankind. That’s up to you and your team as you tackle the desolate wasteland that surrounds you.

It’s a good thing then that technology has kept up with the pace and offers you multiple ways to deal with foes – something that is injected right into the DNA of The Division. There’s a short snippet showing some deep weapon customisation, which holds individual statistics for every part of your weapon. Even sights play a massive role in range over ease of use (this is an RPG after all), so I expect a few hours to be spent in the armoury tweaking and tinkering away.

But nothing really holds up against real team work, and it looks like some of the more boss-like enemies will require just that. The Division might not explicitly assign roles to you, but you’ll need them in your fireteam to deal with certain situations. Having one player use a deployable shield to soak up damage is never a bad thing, leaving a space just wide enough for a close-quarters-specialist to make good use of.

I’m cautiously excited for the more open-world elements of The Division having already tried the backstabbing Dark Zone, and I’m hoping the beta answers a lot of questions around the overall structure that Ubisoft is trying to hit. With March 8th looming, that’s exactly what the game needs right now.