![]() The Division 2 launched back in February 2019, and many players were excited, with the game being received well by critics and fans alike. Going back to New York in Ubisoft's title game may be nothing new for veteran players, but if your introduction to Tom Clancy's The Division was the second game, then heading to New York may garner a great new experience.Įven if players are familiar with the first game and have been hesitant with the expansion, well then we're going to offer you an unbiased review of the story, gameplay, extras of Warlords of New York. I looked at The Division 2’s New York City map during the demo and allowed my imagination to once more run wild, envisioned an update in a year that adds Midtown Manhattan back to The Division 2, or even adds another city to the mix.While many The Division 2 players are struck with nostalgia at the title, Warlords of New York, other newer players may be wondering if the expansion is not only worth their money but their time as well. Is this the way of the future? I hope so. Warlords of New York has made me curious about The Division 2’s second and third year in a way I wasn’t before. As I said, growing pains of an industry in flux. Thus the games that will course-correct and continue onward are branded Destiny 2 and The Division 2 and such, forever frozen in time as a mistake of the old order. The cruel irony of course is that it seems like developers are starting to understand this after releasing sequels. Be a platform, and stop trying to apply an archaic business model onto a new format with new needs. Be a Warframe or a World of Warcraft or a Final Fantasy XIV or an Elder Scrolls Online. Let them get attached to their characters and their gear. Let them go back and revisit old zones, old campaigns. Reward the people who stick with these games for three years, for five years, for ten years. If games like The Division are going to become a standard part of the landscape (as seems likely), then I want them to be designed from the get-go to keep evolving and expanding. It’s strange to keep starting over though, and I hope it doesn’t happen as often with the next console generation. The Division certainly didn’t impress right out the gate. Or maybe it’s simply easier to market a sequel than “Another Big Expansion,” especially to those who fell off early. Maybe the changes Ubisoft needed to make to The Division 2 were too far-reaching. Perhaps the tech underpinning The Division wouldn’t allow it, and we didn’t get a Brooklyn expansion in The Division for a reason. I don’t want to imply that this would be easy, or that it was even possible here. All the old modes carry over, and the Dark Zones, and the characters. Aaron Keener’s story is less of an aside, more a continuous throughline that’s built upon in installments over five years. In this hypothetical scenario, Warlords of New York is the long-awaited expansion to The Division’s New York map, finally letting people walk from Midtown Manhattan down into Lower Manhattan and out to Brooklyn in one contiguous stretch-and then back again. and head back to New York, play the three (and now four) years of The Division content Ubisoft already worked on. At any time, you can depart Washington D.C. Yes, I’m excited.Įverything’s the same, except The Division 2 is actually just an ambitious expansion to The Division. Yes, the series is going back to New York City. ![]() The Division 2 may be one of the last, if we’re lucky-which brings me back to Warlords of New York. Destiny 2, Ghost Recon Breakpoint, the past few years are littered with sequels that probably shouldn’t have been sequels. It’s baffling, and unsustainable, and I suspect it won’t continue like this for much longer-that this generation will be chalked up to growing pains. Then all that work gets dumped for a sequel, and the cycle starts over. Developers spend years adding new quests and new locations, fixing bugs and balancing weapons, making a game better than could ever be expected on release. ![]() ![]() Developers and publishers borrowed the idea of a forever-game from MMOs, but tried to fit it into a studio system that prizes sequels more than expansions. The business model hasn’t caught up though. The Division and its ilk merely weld these ideas to a singleplayer (or at least smaller-scale) framework, and pushed for faster and faster updates. Of course, “constant” meant something very different in 2005 or 2010, but keeping a game fresh with regular expansions and updates isn’t new. You needed a constant drip-feed of content to keep players satisfied, i.e. World of Warcraft, Everquest, these were games designed for the long term. A game that never ends? Up until a few years ago, that usually meant an MMORPG. The term might be new, but it’s an old concept.
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