Beneath a skyline of silver columns and across a bedrock of frostbitten trenches, the New York City of the post-apocalypse sits rooted in perpetual winter. To survive is to scavenge, but for a prolonged period during the game’s turbulent first year, there was little to else aside from the snowfall that had me yearning to return. The Division was an action role-playing game without the means to sustain itself, so malformed was the ecosystem it relied upon. Feeding into its perpetual problems wasn’t just a lack of rewarding gear, but the means to reliably acquire it, utilise it and refine it. Deep in the belly of the labyrinth sat an inescapable purgatory. And it’s here, where the enjoyably rewarding meets the frustratingly obtuse, that the sequel is begrudgingly passed the buck.

At a point when the original Division had received its last major content update, the game could rightfully boast of an impressive wealth of choice in how to play. And this was further strengthened by the standardisation of its loot table, allowing for any piece of gear to be conceivably acquired through any means. Across solitary exploration, cooperative dungeon-delving, narratively driven missions and competitively charged skirmishes, players were rewarded with sufficient progression that made no avenue of content seem less valuable than any other. Over the course of a two year development cycle, the once irrevocably stagnant had been completely revitalised, with the team at Massive Entertainment ensuring that, above all else, time invested was time rewarded. Pervading the sequel is a similar sense of optimism for what the future could bring, albeit knowing the mire that needs to be waded in order to get there. But once more, as player investment remains dependant on having something to strive for, the void of content that waits in the distance serves as an inevitable impediment to the game’s rhythm. Just as with the first edition of The Division, the sequel’s base form simply doesn’t do enough to galvanise the rest of the prospective experience.

As ever, it begins with the ascent to character level 30. Before your pursuit of gear becomes tapered by the search for  specific items, the initial levels prior to the endgame represent the best avenues for following the game’s story and getting to grips with its mechanics. This means becoming suitably attuned to the importance of the cover system, learning as much as you can about the game’s topography, and familiarising yourself with the glossary of terms that outline the structure of a typical character build. Throughout all of this, you’re guided by a dozen story missions that detail the state of post-pandemic Washington, as well as being introduced to the enemy factions that have carved up the city’s territory block by block. Sequestered in the White House, you’re tasked with returning the Strategic Homeland Division back to its full operational strength, and really, that’s where the narrative of the Division 2 seems content to linger. The original game had the benefit of being set in the heart of the contagion, focusing on the failed efforts to combat it as well as the rising threat of a rogue agent trying to synthesise another batch of the strain. With little relationship to the virus aside from being one of many locations affected by its reach, the story in the Division 2 favours a more contained approach rather than expanding upon the established lore. Missions see you repairing machinery or rebooting networks, with many of the more interesting forays into deeper aspects of the games conspiratorial roots frustratingly confined to classified assignments—all 8 of which remain exclusive to owners of the season pass. Still present is the gratification of culling faction leaders, but despite the game’s efforts to villainize them, the figures of Shaw and Ridgeway just aren’t given the same definition as the likes of Bliss and Ferro that preceded them.

WASHINGTON IS MUCH MORE LIVELY THAN MANHATTAN—EVERY BLOCK IS AT WAR & EVERY MONUMENT UNDER SIEGE

Where the wavering narrative fails to conjure much of an investment in the surrounding world, the city of Washington espouses much more character when being idly explored. Once again, fragments of lore found in the form of ECHO recordings and audio logs colour in much of the state’s recent history, but unlike New York, the capital feels much closer to reaching a semblance of normality. A few months down the line from the events in the first game, survivors are armed and ready to fight, while enemy factions seem better equipped to deal with the chaos. Where small forces once struggled to resist complete annihilation, now entire militias wage war for control of monuments, relics and resources, all from positions of strength. The escapees of Rikers can’t match the ambition of the Outcasts of Roosevelt, while the Last Man Battalion lacked the same calculated foresight as the Black Tusk. In being a decidedly more populated environment than New York, the world doesn’t evoke the same melancholy in solitude as a typical Manhattan midnight. When the snowfall was as important to the original’s isolationist tone as the urban decay and abandonment that surrounded it, it’s difficult to simply ignore its absence in the sequel. Though as the snow subsides, the changing of the seasons brings with it a broader palette of weather. Washington’s greatest strength lies in its depiction of an ever-escalating conflict, and in that, the heated storms, torrential rain, blustery gales and glowing haze of an enduring summer make for suitably atmospheric backdrops in their own right.

From a design standpoint, missions within the Division 2 have sufficiently improved from those of its predecessor, each having been constructed with a deeper understanding of the game’s core strengths. The base difficulty of the average firefight has been noticeably scaled-up, with a more aggressive enemy AI now dealing damage in larger quantities to players who find themselves caught adrift between areas of cover. As a result, there’s a larger emphasis on the necessity of the cover system itself, with the lethality of combat forcing something of a reeducation in self-preservation. For all but the most well-tuned, armour-heavy character builds, absorbing an onslaught of enemy fire isn’t feasible, with the stronger challenge ensuring a reliance upon tactical movement and opportunistic striking. Enemies have a little less health, but hit with greater force, and in that exists a balance between the right amount of challenge, and the gratification of continued survival against the odds.

To further compliment the game’s renewed gunplay, its environments have suitably adapted to cater for broader, more tasking firefights. Freed from office cubicles and subway tunnels, the gladiatorial arenas featured within main missions have been constructed with the expected level of immaculate detailing, while also serving as theatres for many battles that become genuinely memorable. Rectifying much of the original’s simpler corridor-to-corridor combat, player engagement seems more valued as missions are designed with a better appreciation for objective variety and pacing. Taking cues from the popular ‘Incursion’ activities that constituted the toughest challenges Manhattan had to offer, interactivity is much more inclusive to the experience, offering welcome breaks between the shooting galleries and even the occasional pause for thought. Its implementation is tame really, but the difference between an objective being laborious or not is often lies with the waves of adversaries petering out as you activate a dormant satellite array, or enter defensive positions as an SHD computer begins to churn through its data drives. Player passivity is to be expected when much of the endgame relies upon repeating existing content, but even the slightest boon to the inventiveness of design can make a telling difference in just how fatiguing that repetition can be. In the first mainline expansion to arrive in the Division 2, ‘Expeditions’, linear pathing takes on a diminished role, with players instead roaming across a wider area in pursuit of one of several different objectives at a time. Not a precise view to the future perhaps, but a similarly necessary approach when it comes to rejuvenating the established experience with something new and appealing.

As the endgame commences, progression in the Division 2 narrows into a more direct interpretation of the base experience, a process that only succeeds in laying bare many of its outstanding issues. The cynical and calculated nature of measuring weapon stats and damage graphs represents the ingrained depth of the Division’s loot system—that is, piecing together a completed set of gear, and then fine tuning it in order to eke out every last drop of its potential. But this doesn’t work when, at the heart of the problem, loot in the Division 2 is incredibly lacklustre. It’s familiar territory for those seasoned in the ARPG genre and its gradual patch-by-patch growth, albeit with the problems of the Division seeming a little more specific. The heart of the matter rests with a tangible lack of diversity and choice in available gear hampering player creativity. On offer is a broad number of possible combinations, but a shallow and often inconsequential difference in power. Finding a new rifle that deals superior damage to your previous one may be enough see you reach the 500 point cap, though there’s no guarantee you’ll notice its improved efficacy in combat. This is due to items dropping at gear score 500 potentially being no better than their lower-scored equivalent, which causes much of the gear that populates the high-end loot pool to seem patently redundant.

SKILLS NOW FIT A MORE SUPPLEMETARY ROLE & ARE LESS LIKELY TO HAVE A TANGIBLE AFFECT ON THE FLOW OF COMBAT

In the first Division, this problem could potentially be solved through the recalibration system, a valuable tool when it came to making your items fit for purpose. Now, recalibration no longer allows you to pluck your ideal replacement stat from the talent pool, instead asking that you first find another piece of gear that bears it. All of this only leaves you at the mercy of random chance, the prospect of making something from nothing having remained exclusive to the game’s predecessor. Further perplexing still are the omissions of branded gear sets and a host of exotic weapons. In the Division 2, there are few items powerful enough to form the cornerstone of a build, and fewer still to be sought after specifically. Rather than looking for that glowing red pulse or mint-green beam that heralds another battle fought and survived, you search instead for the perfect stat locked away within an arbitrary item. Not a specific brand, model or type, just an amorphous slab of gold that you hope meets the majority of the several different requirements you’re looking for. And if it doesn’t, your search will have to continue, the gearing system within the Division 2 infuriately insistent on withholding the means to prosper from the player, staggering you with blockade after blockade passable only through a conquest of vacant chance.

By the time that you unavoidably arrive at that end, all that’s left is to wallow in the same purgatorial vacuum as the rest of the community. Beyond this, there’s nothing else left of the Division 2 to redeem it. In the Dark Zone, the loot is the same as to be expected. And even in the game’s initial raid set at Washington Airport, the thirst for a challenge is negated by the likelihood of being left with nothing to show for your efforts. The problems with this sequel are fundamental, perhaps even more so than those suffered by the original. Deficiencies in both the quality and quantity of gear form a perpetual cycle of frustration, with hours of investment regularly culminating in little to no advancement of your build. And at that point, when the Division 2 is so far removed from the successes and improvements of the original, it begins to feel like an entirely different game. What potential that formed the base of its foundation has been squandered by a misinterpretation of ideas and a misunderstanding of its strengths. Deep in its core, a litany of problems not so easy to recover from.