It’s been seven years since the initial release of The Division 2.
In that time, the game has gone from a struggling sophomore companion to the smash hit that was The Division, and now it’s trying to be it, with DLC set in Lower Manhattan as well as Brooklyn.
Well, The Division 2 is back in New York, this time taking up residency in the glitzy Upper West Side and the bucolic Central Park.
And while New York still has fresh locations to offer The Division 2, the game itself is starting to run out of things to give, which will split people.
The Division 2’s greatest flaw seems to be that it has lived a full life for a game, and its greatest fear appears to be losing people’s attention.
That seems to be why it tries to take a major story leap in The Division 2: Echoes of Central Park, but does it work?
A Storm Falls Over Central Park; Enter The Division
When The Division came out a decade ago, it revolutionized gaming. That’s not a tough statement to make.
In terms of story and environment, Ubisoft leaned into literature, putting the name of one of the era’s most celebrated authors on the package.
They also went out of their comfort zone. This game development house aimed to appeal to the largest possible audience, often by playing it safe and staying out of politics and social commentary.
The Division bucked that approach entirely.
A deadly plague breaks out, fueled by consumerism, during the most magical time of the year in New York City. Man, that was magic.
And Ubisoft backed it up with exceptional worldbuilding that wrote its own story in a pretty much one-to-one setting.
Over the years, The Division has kept doing that, but with less overall magic and environment.
The Division 2: Echoes of Central Park seems to aim to change that by adopting a B-movie horror persuasion.
This new addition leans hard into it. I mean, you’ve got a narrator speaking in a rhythmic way that is definitely not daily prose, à la Jughead Jones in Riverdale, complete with all the vocal compression the audio department seemed to have budget for.
The settlement is also inside of AMC Lincoln Square, just to give you a sense of how much the devs are leaning into the movie kitsch.
The story here that I’ve been given so far feels like it’s trying to be a full reboot. A tech CEO has gone missing somewhere in Central Park, and she’s deemed VIP enough that The Division has launched an entire search-and-rescue mission for her.
This is all happening as whispers spread of a new, more virulent Dollar Flu out there with some… more terrifying side effects.
Oh, and a new flu means an old flame, doesn’t it? In the form of The Cleaners coming back to work even harder to eliminate any and every form of illness.
Now, I was only given access to the introductory mission and one of six story missions in this new DLC, but I can tell you it leans heavily into fear, using environmental storytelling mixed with the scariest Division gameplay elements.
I started my demo with a jaunty stroll through Central Park to rescue a team of Division agents pinned down by Black Tusk. Now, if you are a lore nerd saying hold up a minute, isn’t Central Park a mass grave for those who died in the early days of the Dollar Flu? You are right, and when paired with a night during a major thunderstorm as a setting, this maze of dead bodies stacked as high as the eye can see is pure nightmare fuel!
I also got to experience a long, variable mission inside the Deutsche Bank Center that really leans into helplessness and environmental fear.
Wide open spaces, new faces and the same old gameplay
In terms of gameplay, The Division 2: Echoes of Central Park seems less inclined to reinvent itself.
So far, the new additions feel like The Division again.
I loaded into Central Park directly off of Columbus Circle, by the famed Maine Monument, and found myself fighting Black Tusk in a large and open battlefield that felt refreshing and reminiscent of the opening moments of The Division 2 spent on the South Lawn…only, you know, with a bunch of dead bodies and even deadlier trees as a backdrop.
I was having fun, yet I was feeling a general malaise of vigour, a feeling that I didn’t have the energy to keep going forward.
I was hoping the demo would give me a new, grand tool to use the way past DLCs have, and I was rewarded with nothing yet from The Division 2: Echoes of Central Park.
And that scares me. I mean, we dodge-rolled from The Division becoming a live service game, and that’s great. But I really need some innovation from the division in terms of gameplay, and I didn’t get to see that in my demo.
My second problem with the gameplay in The Division 2: Echoes of Central Park is that it appears to be taking a step back in terms of being unfairly tuned.
To Ubisoft’s credit, they introduced a companion mode that lets you bring one of three other Division agents in this story along with you, and kit them out how you like.
This is great for removing the solo tax, but Ubisoft then just upped the tax again.
It is genuinely helpful having a computer-controlled ally following you, but against a bullet-sponge tank with a decoy that actually moves and returns fire, an oversized drone and an engineer-type final boss with three dog-style drones that all need to be down in order to hurt as part of Deutsche Bank Center, I was quickly reminded that Ubisoft expects you to have friends, or pay the solo tax in spades.
The West Side Agents are still the same
Visually and atmospherically, The Division 2: Echoes of Central Park likes to play things dark and dreary.
Because this story leans into a spookier-season atmosphere, the visuals are meant to be seen in the dark. The first boss battle in Deutsche Bank Center even used flashes of total darkness as a combat element.
And there is no arguing that this representation of New York’s Upper West Side is the best that any backdrop has ever looked in The Division‘s history.
However, I can’t help but feel like aside from takes on popular landmarks like the Dakota and Apthorp apartment buildings, both of which I could only see at a distance in this demo, I found myself looking at a high-res version of the same Merit, Doku noodle bar and that one parody Tom Ford store I can never remember the name of.
The point is, while you’ve yet to visit the Upper West Side in The Division, you’ve seen a lot of it before.
This franchise is well-respected for capturing its real-life setting with often one-to-one accuracy, but it’s begging for more than new landmarks and a gameplay refresh.
First Impressions
After playing the demo of The Division 2: Echoes of Central Park a couple of times, I am thoroughly conflicted.
This is one of my favourite franchises in video games.
I am absolutely hooked on the soft reboot in storytelling that is clearly happening here, and its intention to do so with a shoestring, horror-like camp hiding a high-tech social commentary.
Yet, I find myself wishing The Division would commit fully to letting go of the past, and New York, and present me with an experience I haven’t had yet.
Looking back on my time with this demo, I recall smiling when I found a recording from a survivor who had walked to NYC from West Virginia to escape the craziness, and the Division agent on the other end asking why he would walk into the storm. The man remarked on how much worse it is out there. To me, this felt like an introduction to The Heartland and Middle America, which the series has been begging for for years.
I want it to go there, and I want it to go in a new style. With new tech, better gameplay balance, and a new visual style.
