I was running down the once populated streets of New York City hunting my prey. I see a target out in the open, I spot the yellow bag of loot on his lower back and I lift my assault rifle up, aim down the sights, and unload my clip into him. As the bullets whiz past him he sprints down the road and I begin to pursue him, he pulls out his pistol and returns fire while running away from me. He takes a sharp turn down an alley and I follow. As soon as I think I can stop, take aim and shoot him down, he leads me around another corner to three other people. The tables have turned and now the hunter has become the hunted.
The four Division agents all aim their guns at me and spray bullets down the tight alleyway. I quickly leap into cover behind a dumpster and wait for a chance to return fire or retreat. Once I hear the bullets stop I toss a grenade over the dumpster and jump out of cover and quickly pull my gun out and start blindly firing bullets while moving backwards out of the alley. Once I think it’s safe for me to turn my back, I run out the way I came and I know they’re going to follow me. I run towards the entrance to the underground subway and make my way down the stairs as I hear them firing bullets in my general direction. Once I get to the train tracks I see multiple enemies with flamethrowers and decide to use this to my advantage. I hide behind a pillar and wait for my pursuers to catch up with me. Once they arrive, I shoot a bullet in the ground to alert the flamethrower-wielding thugs and watch the chaos unfold between the pyromaniacs and my pursuers. I take advantage of the chaos and make my escape unnoticed. This is the chaos that happens in Tom Clancy’s The Division. The game is filled with amazing player created moments and makes you think “Wow, that was awesome! I have never had something happen like that in a game.”
The Division Closed Beta that happened over this past weekend was one of the best betas I have played in recent memory. I must admit, I was nervous to play this game. I was worried it wouldn’t live up to my expectations, that it just wouldn’t hit that sweet spot. But this beta exceeded my expectations and made me infinitely more excited for the final release. The Division has so many moments like the one in the previous paragraph, I could write so many paragraphs filled with movie-esque moments that happened to me in The Division.
Part of what helps create these cinematic moments in The Division is the movement and animation of your character. They move in such a way, it’s almost life like. Your character jogs through the streets, is constantly ready to unload his clip by standing an offensive stance, and will jump over knee-high obstacles while sprinting without breaking the flow of your movement. The game also takes mechanics from other Ubisoft games like Splinter Cell: Blacklist by allowing you to run from cover to cover fairly seamlessly. Sometimes I actually felt like I am watching a real person move in front of me!
The beta, although not the final product, was pretty beautiful. Sure, it didn’t look like the game we saw at the initial reveal at E3 2013 but it is still a very good-looking game! I loved seeing my footprints pop up in the snow behind me and the puddles accurately reflect lights and other objects. The overall atmosphere is amazing. There is so much storytelling using only the environment like dead bodies lying in the streets and dogs wandering around looking for food. The fact that there was so much story just in this small area excites me for when I can get my hands on the final product and see the other areas that more than likely have small stories to be told. The overall look and feel of the game is spectacular. The beta had a few texture issues, but it’s nothing that can’t be ironed out before the game releases in March.
The beta also gave us a nice tease of what’s to come in the final game. There will be a full-fledged crafting system, an intriguing story about a virus that breaks out on Black Friday and spreads throughout the holiday season which leads to the downfall of New York where the game takes place, and other famous sections of New York like Times Square and Hell’s Kitchen!
I have been very excited for The Division since the E3 2013 reveal and can’t wait for it to release on March 8th, 2016. We will have a review for the game around the time it releases. What are you most excited for in The Division? Let us know in the comments below!
Cade is a games journalist, Gaming Writer at ComicBook.com. They contributed 108 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, and Xbox news: served as Editor-in-Chief at GameZone before joining ComicBook.com.