The Division Preview - E3 2015

Tom Clancy's brand has been busy at E3 2015, his name accompanying three titles from Ubisoft. We have Ghost Recon Wild Lands, the open world, team-based action RPG; Rainbow Six Siege, the first-person barricade-based shooter, and The Division, the open-world team-based action RPG. We had a chance to check out all three games at the show.

The Division takes place in New York some time in the future after a mysterious and deadly virus has torn through the world. For reasons unknown, the army has abandoned their posts around the island, and in the majority of locations, lawlessness reigns.

The titular Division is an unnumbered set of people. They are unnumbered because players in the real world make up their ranks. It's your job to traverse this open world environment grabbing loot, encountering deadly foes, and finding other members of The Division, who may lend you a helping hand or shoot you in the face and steal your swag. Also, you need to discover who is responsible for this while pandemic mess.

Team-based and open-world are resounding themes at this year's E3, but none capture the divisive nature quite like The Division. It's there in the name, and I had some hands-on time with the game. I was dropped into an area just outside the "Dead Zone", a section of Manhattan that had been walled off thanks to the virus wreaking havoc. The Dead Zone is a dangerous boiling pot of "Rikers" (escaped Rikers Island convicts), flamethrower-wielding foes (The Cleaners) burning virus-ridden body bags, and, of course, Division members themselves.

There were three of us in a team, and we were to go in alongside several other teams of newly recruited Division members ready to help or fight us. Our mission was simple: get in, grab loot, extract. However, as with most team-based games, you're only as strong as your weakest link. I was soon to learn to learn what this truly meant.

When we began, everything was going well on my end. I was introduced to my class, who was one of three predetermined for the play-through. However, players will be able to choose the weapons, skills, and abilities that best suit them, allowing you to tailor your member to what you desire. I got lucky: my character was more of a stealthy scout, as opposed to my brutish allies. I had a device which allowed me to send out a pulse that told me where my enemies, allies and unknowns were located. Weapon-wise, I had two assault rifles, a pistol sidearm, and some grenades. But this excursion was going to take more than firepower: it would take my sanity.

A seamless transition took the three of us over the barrier and into the Dead Zone. Your character can vault over most obstacles such as trucks, ledges, fences - or take cover behind barricades - anything waist-high, basically. You can move cover to over by angling the camera and waiting for the contextual glow to appear.

Our first test - the weakening of the chain - came when we came up across Rikers. I'd seen the demo of the level several times. In my mind, the plan was to follow the developers' advice: take up positions, communicate, deal with the enemy like we were Seal Team 6 and not three men sweating in an enclosed booth.

This was not meant to be. To our coach's credit - the man guiding us through the demo - he had just begun to advise this strategy when one of our team immediately opened fire. Strategy and communication be damned.

I dealt with it. I adapted. I opened fire for support. My teammates rushed into the fray, men possessed, while I hung back in cover and picked my shots. Somehow, we all survived, and I was the first to break from cover and dash to the loot cache. The weapon that I picked up was contaminated. This meant it needed to be decontaminated before I could use it, which meant I had to make it out of the area. Alive. I had a feeling I may never get to use it.

So, on we went to a central area containing a park where I used my pulse to scope out the enemies. All the while, I had, unbeknownst to me, filtered out our guide who had to continually tell my teammates to use health packs, loot, or take cover. At one point, he had to inform the man next to me that a shotgun was not an optimal long-range weapon. He might as well have played the game for them. Combat is standard third-person and there aren't many surprises or revelations. You take cover; you shoot; you toss a grenade. The skills you can equip and other abilities may switch battles up, but it's a little early to tell.

I decided that my teammates worked best as bait and let them run about, getting shot and generally acting like toddlers on a sugar high. The only time I really needed them was when I had taken too much damage and began crawling around on the floor. It's at this point your comrades can run over and revive you before it's too late. If you perish, you must wait to respawn. Even though I crawled at their feet and shouted at them via my microphone, they ran aimlessly past. It took our guide to instruct them to save my life. The chain had all but snapped.

However, The Division does have an interesting concept. I mentioned that members can be with and against you. This extends to your own team. In the video demo, we saw a team of three "friends" who were playing online together. They went through the same level as us, teamed up with some other members for a while, then killed them for loot. Eventually, as they were about to extract, their own "friend" turned on them and pillaged their corpses for all they were worth.

My bonds of friendship are fraught enough without me acting treacherous in team-based games. The potential of flushing years of friendship down the drain for a shiny weapon would be a long, well thought out decision. When playing the Division with two strangers, however, it took me all of five minutes to pull the trigger. They made me do it. Shooting them in the face was cathartic. Punishing them in real life would have gotten me tossed out of the booth. Turning on them in-game was as good as it got. I killed them, took their loot, and was then promptly killed by other players.

What is frantic about The Division is the fact that, because of other players in your environment, you constantly have to cover yourself. You need to work as a coherent team. If you find good teammates in this game, you have to stick with them through thick and thin if you want to succeed. No shooting them in the face. However, finding these people will not come easy. Luckily for me, a team can consist of one person - you on your lonesome - or up to four.

When you have had your fill looting the area, making friends, or destroying the bonds of friendship, you can extract. This consists of sending up a signal flair - from multiple points in an area - and waiting for a chopper to pick you up. A timer accompanies this so you have to stay alive until it arrives to hightail it out of there with your life and loot.

The Division was frustrating and fast-paced. The experience can really hinge on finding a solid team, which may be its biggest hindrance. You can do it by yourself, though PvE and PvP go seamlessly hand in hand. You'll randomly encounter other players who may or may not want to help you. If you're alone, you're at the mercy of the world. From a thematic perspective, it completely makes sense. In this post-apocalyptic environment, it's every man for himself. This works really well in Day Z, which certainly has to be an influence. However, the aforementioned game's nature means you start off alone and gaining allies is a more organic experience - you know the risks.

As it stands, The Division continues to divide me. I already have enough reasons for my friends and family to dislike me, and I don't need another one. For me, The Division will be best enjoyed playing the lone wanderer, scavenging in the wastelands of New York, remembering how incompetent my former teammates were before I shot them in the face. And hey, in a sense, we recreated the trailer to a tee.

Players will be able to join the Beta for Xbox One in December, and the game is due for release on March 8, 2016 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.