Tom Clancy's The Division Reviews
The Division might be the glossiest Skinner box ever created
Tom Clancy's The Division is a raw cut, but with a huge potential for something really groundbreaking. Only time will show, if Ubisoft can actually make it happen.
Despite its solid third person shooter mechanics and engaging co-op opportunities, The Division screams mediocre in every other sense.
Going exactly as far as the gameplay takes you, The Division hands you a New York you've seen before with enough extras to keep your eyes entertained, for better or worse, along the lengthy journey. Cover-to-cover gunplay forces you to get the drop on a small roster of enemies that, nevertheless, you should enjoy mowing down for hours on end on the strong back of the Dark Zone's originality and the many ways to build up your toxic avenger.
I desperately wanted to love this game, however all of the bad things (as I said in the beginning) subsided the bad, and I was therefore uninterested. Overall, I'd rate this game an honest 5/10, if the Dark Zone had been a success, but it's sadly only a 4/10.
Despite a weak narrative and some repetitive elements, The Division is a slick and engrossing co-operative loot focused shooter with one of the most visually striking settings around.
Tom Clancy's The Division has plenty of polish and engaging gun fights but we're not quite sold on the latest shooter from Ubisoft.
I'm also probably going to head back into Tom Clancy's The Division in the weeks or months to come as more content emerges and bugs get fixed. Ubisoft has something with serious potential, and it'll be intriguing to see what shape this world takes. I also want to see what stuff awaits in unexplored corners of the Dark Zone. That's really it.
Despite some annoyances with the gameplay mechanics and overused mission objectives, The Division truly is an exciting and immersive role-playing experience.
As it stands now, Tom Clancy's The Division lives up to the hype it's generated over the years. For a game of this nature, it's too early to say whether it is definitively good or bad, but for now, it's off to a very good start.
The Division is a solid shooter, but there's nothing compelling about it, either in terms of story or gameplay. Those playing with others will likely have a lot more fun than those playing alone, although it's safe to say anyone who likes a decent shooter will probably want to check it out. Like Destiny, there's sure to be a dedicated following of players for whom the game simply clicks, and the endless grind is reason enough to keep coming back. For the rest, it will probably disappear to their shelves after a few months' time - unless Ubisoft comes up with some compelling post-launch content to keep them holding on.
The Division doesn't have many ideas of its own, but the way it unites traditional open-world design with online multiplayer makes it an addictive social shooter. The repetition does wear thin after a while, and the end-game content isn't as robust as it needs to be, so there's a legitimate concern as to whether the game will remain engrossing in the long run. Still, Ubisoft has erected a solid foundation, one that can easily be bettered by impending content updates and expansions.
A paranoid and misanthropic images of society
It lacks the amount of narrative control over the story that Mass Effect provides, but in most other respects The Division accomplishes the things it sets out to do. It might not be the textbook definition of fun, but the bleak world is interesting, the combat is engaging and I found progression rewarding. That is a recipe for success despite a few other smaller warts along the way.
'Tom Clancy's The Division' has the fingerprints of many other Ubisoft properties: 'Ghost Recon', 'Rainbow Six', and even non-Clancy stuff like 'Watch Dogs'. It combines some of the best features of those games into a highly enjoyable MMO slash shooter. I would not say it's the best shooter I've played on the Xbox One, nor is it a huge leap forward in video gaming as a whole, but I'll be damned if I'm not having fun with it.
The Division is an ambitious game when it comes to the world it creates and its mechanics, for both cooperative play and Player versus Player, are solid and engaging but much of its future will depend on how Ubisoft caters to the needs of the community and to the unique ways in which players come to enjoy this beautiful and derelict world of New York.
As someone that reached the end game a day or two after the game came out, I've not had quite a lot of time playing the end game and have completed every challenging mission available.
Despite disappointing side missions and weak story, The Division's vibrant and realistic world, balanced gameplay and breath-taking visuals has made it worth checking out.
Review in Persian | Read full review
With all of the content packed in at launch, the solid gameplay mechanics, tactical co-op experience, and gorgeous open world, it was more than a great idea for Ubisoft to delay Tom Clancy's Division as long as they did. Everything about this game was far more than I could have expected, and it's definitely worth the wait. And this is only the beginning, as we still have a year of post-launch content, both free and paid, to keep players diving back in for that looter-shooter glory.
Tom Clancy's The Division is available now on the PC, PS4 and Xbox One. It was developed by Ubisoft Massive and published by Ubisoft. This review covers the PS4 version of the game.