A store page for The Division's upcoming free-to-play looter-shooter spin-off The Division: Heartland went up on the Ubisoft Store yesterday, revealing new details about the game's setting and multiplayer modes. The store page has since been taken down, but not before it was spotted by a few eagle-eyed Twitterers. Seeing as the next Ubisoft Forward showcase is scheduled for this coming Saturday, it’s entirely possible that we’ll be seeing some concrete deets about Heartland then.
]]>Today, Ubisoft will announce a new game in the "Tom Clancy's" universe, but don't get your hopes up for a new Splinter Cell just yet. While Ubisoft themselves haven't said much about what they're revealing, a few snippets of gameplay have already been released, and it sure looks like Call Of Duty: The Division. I shan't knock it until we've seen more, however, so come join us at 7pm BST (11am PT) to catch the reveal stream.
]]>Ubisoft have announced Tom Clancy’s The Division: Heartland, a new standalone free-to-play game due for release in 2021-2022. Details are scant, but it'll be developed by Red Storm Entertainment rather than Massive Entertainment, who made The Division 1 and 2.
]]>New York ravaged by a pandemic isn't quite the jaunty thought experiment it was when The Division launched in 2016. If you're not too wracked with existential dread at the prospect, then there's a free game in it for you. The Division is free for keeps on Uplay until September 8th if you log in with your Ubisoft account to claim it.
]]>‘Tis the season / use a brolly / tra la la la / la la la la.
Hello, it's me, the list goblin, here in this festive first week of December to deliver a big black bin bag of presents to you. And by presents, I mean a single irrevocable inventory of the most disastrous and terrible winters in the videogames of recent history. Yes, there will be cannibalism. Yes, thousands will die of exposure. But from this great compendium of coldness will come knowledge, strength, and, okay, at least one adorable puppy. Here are the 9 harshest winters in videogames. Wrap up.
]]>Rural life is disgusting. All those shrubs and trees, how awful. You should pack your checkered pouch and head into the big smoke. The shining cities of videogameland are calling to you, and the team of the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, will be there to help you get settled in to your disgusting, overpriced flat no matter which giant urban maze you choose. Trust us, life is so much better in the city.
Ignore the rats. You'll get used to them.
]]>Tom Clancy's The Division 2 launches in March, but those confident enough to put money down on Ubisoft Massive's MMO-lite shoot n' looter get to play around in its post-apocalyptic Washington DC early. A beta weekend will be running from Thursday, February 7th to Monday, February 1th, it'll be open to all pre-ordering players, but those merely curious in the game can sign up for a chance to get in free here. Below, a predictably patriotic and bombastic story trailer, and a breakdown of some of the PC version's finer features.
]]>Tom Clancy's The Division 2 won't be launching on Steam, but Massive Entertainment and Ubisoft's upcoming co-op shooter will launch on Epic's increasingly popular games store, as announced here. Ever since Epic unveiled their store in early December, they've been racking up independent exclusives, but signing a multi-game agreement with Ubisoft feels like a big deal. The game will still be available direct from Ubisoft via Uplay, but the Steam store page has now vanished (a Google-cached copy here), with an Epic Store page taking its place. The game launches March 15th.
]]>Yakuza 0 and Tom Clancy's The Division (which is rather good too) are the headlining games in the latest Humble Monthly. That makes it a very cheap way to get to know Yakuza hero Kazuma Kiryu - everyone should, unless you're some kind of jerk in which case run. Despite his occupation as a Professional Crimesman, he's the nicest man alive, and will help you with all your problems, especially if those problems can be punched. Get those two now for $12 (around £9.40), and after a month you'll get a bundle of mystery games too. Trailers and some thoughts below.
]]>We've just passed the half-way point of 2018, so Ian Gatekeeper and all his fabulously wealthy chums over at Valve have revealed which hundred games have sold best on Steam over the past six months. It's a list dominated by pre-2018 names, to be frank, a great many of which you'll be expected, but there are a few surprises in there.
2018 releases Jurassic World Evolution, Far Cry 5 Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Warhammer: Vermintide II are wearing some spectacular money-hats, for example, while the relatively lesser-known likes of Raft, Eco and Deep Rock Galactic have made themselves heard above the din of triple-A marketing budgets.
]]>Tom Clancy's shooty MMO-lite The Division 2 has a lot of endgame planned for those who burn through its main story, Ubisoft announced at their E3 press conference. After completing the story, you'll get to choose a prestige class with its own dedicated special weapon, as well as unlocking a new set of "specialisations". You'll probably need a few of these extra ranks under your belt to tackle the new 8-player raids, which (if the high-level stuff in the first game was any indication) will put most squads through the wringer. It also looks like it'll have a more reasonable approach to expansions and updates for dedicated players, saying many episodic updates will be free.
]]>"Miss, Miss, it's so sunny, can we have Steam Charts on the field?"
"NO. Sit down and write about popular PC games in this oppressively hot room until the DAY YOU DIE."
]]>Ubisoft today revealed The Division 2, continuing their near-future post-apocalyptic online open-world shooter-RPG series. This time, players will be fighting for survival--and to establish order--in Washington DC. Unlike the first game's snowy New York City, this seems quite a pleasant place, aside from the virus and all the gangs and factions murdering each other. Here, watch the first lump of gameplay footage in a demonstration vid from Ubi below. And yes, you bet your botty it includes ha-ha-hilarious scripted banter between players.
]]>Update: Ubisoft have officially announced development of The Division 2, along with an English version of the press release.
The Division 2 is in development, according to a press released leaked by a German stock-traders site. Thanks to the wonders of Google Translate, we have the first few morsels of info on an upcoming sequel to the shoot-o-RPG.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time.
If I had infinite lives, I'd waste at least one of them playing Tom Clancy's The Division.
]]>The game trailer is a sly creature. It wants to entertain you, to excite you, to embolden you with curiousity. But it also wants to sell you a bunch of code wrapped up in some 3D shapes. Some trailers turn out to be more artful than the game they’re hawking, others plant sneaky emotions in your head with music. However, some are better than others. Here are the best conflagrations of light and noise in PC gaming.
]]>Another year over, a new one just begun, which means, impossibly, even more games. But what about last year? Which were the games that most people were buying and, more importantly, playing? As is now something of a tradition, Valve have let slip a big ol' breakdown of the most successful titles released on Steam over the past twelve months.
Below is the full, hundred-strong roster, complete with links to our coverage if you want to find out more about any of the games, or simply to marvel at how much seemed to happen in the space of 52 short weeks.
]]>A big free update for snowy shooter The Division is out now. The Resistance update is quite a hefty one for the third-person dog-pooping sim. It adds a big new area of New York (the West Side piers), a couple of new game modes, tweaks to current multiplayer modes, and ‘exotic’ weapons like a large machinegun called “Big Alejandro”. To an old Divisioneer like me, none of it seems as enticing as the survival mode of last year, but it might appeal to those who enjoy facing wave after wave of bad men with firearms. The new ‘Resistance’ mode is essentially Ubisoft’s take on Horde mode from Gears of War.
]]>The baddies of Ubisoft’s post-disaster Clancy-em-up The Division [official site] are sick of your attitude. The upcoming Resistance update 1.8 is free and sees the dastardly bullet sponges of New York hanging out together and putting their differences aside to form an alliance of flamethrowing cleaners, escaped prisoners, rioters and mercenaries, all of whom want you dead in a ditch. What a good plan. You might even say it’s intrepid. At least, I would, because I also need to mention the new area coming to the game, the West Side piers, housing tourist attraction and quite-large aircraft carrier the USS Intrepid.
]]>Today brings new events, tasks, and items to Tom Clancy's The Division [official site] in a big update, arriving ahead of a weekend trial which will let all Divisioneers play the shooter MMO's Survival expansion for free. When our Brendan was playing last year, he declared that Survival "feels like the best part of the Division right now." You might want to give that a go if you've Divided but not bought into the expansion.
]]>There's a platter of free stuff going at Ubisoft this weekend. Post-apocalyptic online shooter The Division [official site], winter sports sim Steep [official site] and two-wheeling platformer Trials Fusion [official site] all available to play for diddly squat until 8pm on Sunday (UK time) through Ubisoft's Uplay client.
Now, I know some of these games are getting long in the tooth but there are probably some of you out there that, like me, have been meaning to play at least one of them but have never got round to it.
]]>Happy news for fans of bullets and snow. Shooty third-person not-quite-MMO The Division [official site] is free this weekend, which is probably enough time to murder everyone in New York. As usual with these things, progress will carry over if you choose to buy it afterwards. But you can always just take in the atmosphere for the weekend and never return. It’s quite to nice plod around Hell’s Kitchen in the fog, watching dogs poop (see above) and listening to angry people shout at you from the windows.
]]>Oh hey, Ubisoft's Massive Entertainment's Tom Clancy's The Division [official site] launched a year ago today. The third and final announced expansion launched the other week so... what lies ahead for the shooter-RPG? Two free content updates coming this year, Ubisoft say. The Division was our favourite co-op game of 2016 so hey, ongoing support is good.
]]>The third paid expansion for The Division [official site], The Last Stand, has launched today alongside a big free content update for all players. Last Stand adds a new 8v8 point-capturing PvP mode (you'll never guess what it's named), while additions and changes in Update 1.6 include adding new areas to almost double the size of the Dark Zone. That's not a bad pair of launches. Also out today is a demo, letting all and sundry play through the start of the shooty action-RPG. Not a bad trio!
]]>The free The Division [official site] update accompanying its third expansion will "almost double the playable size" of the current Dark Zone PvP murderhell, Ubisoft say. While they haven't yet said when they'll launch the expansion, The Last Stand, they have started chatting more about new things coming free or for cash money. The Last Stand sounds interesting too, introducing a new team-based PvP mode in instanced murderzones separate from the main world.
]]>“Do not march on Moscow,” said Field Marshal Montgomery, “and do not make a videogame movie.” Wise words that continue to be ignored by the titans of this ridiculous industry. Ubisoft, as you might have heard, aren’t marching on the Kremlin but they are making another videogame movie, this time based on Tom Clancy’s The Division [official site]. Today they announced that Stephen Gaghan, screenplay writer of Traffic and director-writer of Syriana, will be writing and directing this too.
]]>Valve capped off 2016 by revealing the year's 100 highest-grossing games on Steam, which is a pretty interesting list. If you've been following Alec's prolonged breakdown over the weekly charts you'll not be shocked by revelations that Grand Theft Auto V and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive are near the top, but you might not expect them to be joined by the likes of No Man's Sky or the free-to-play Dota 2.
When I asked Alec if he fancied writing up this chart too, he began hissing "The Venga Bus is coming the Venga Bus IS coming the Venga Bus is coming to take me away ho-ho hee-hee ha-haaa" so you get me and my GIFs instead.
]]>Out with the old, in with the new. By which I mean 'and our weekly Steam Charts, showing the ten games which sold best over the previous week, returns - replete with most of the same names as last year.'
SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT AND NEVER BROUGHT TO MIND?
Welcome back.
]]>It's the most wonderful time of the year. It's THE mosssssssst wonderful tiiiiiiiiiiiime ahaahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah I wish I had a machinegun ho ho ho ahahaha, get stuffed 2016.
]]>I never expected to like heavily instanced MMO shooter The Division [official site] as much as I did, but performing the cover-and-shoot-and-flank loop against its curiously strong hoodie-wearing enemies was moreish and a great backdrop for playing with friends. That's why we named it yesterday as our favourite co-op game of the year, and that's why it's good news that there's a free weekend for the game running from today until December 18th.
]]>The next door on the calendar is ominous. The rewards inside are worth the risk but the whole area might well be contaminated. Day thirteen of The RPS Advent Calendar, which highlights our favourite games of the year, brings...
It's the year's best cooperative game, The Division [official site]!
]]>The baseball bat guys got me again. Here I am, lying face down in the snow, surrounded by hooded and bloodthirsty punks, who smashed my bones until I died. It has been a hard life. I almost froze to death, scavenged the belongings of fallen players, and somehow reached the most dangerous part of blizzard-stricken New York all by myself. Now, I am dead. The anti-virals I was told to retrieve are less than ten yards away. This is The Division’s new survival mode. In many ways, it is what the shooter’s original Dark Zone should have been.
]]>Aside from starting a new tradition of unusually-named Steam Awards, Valve have also pulled out their worn and adored bargain bucket and have begun to fill it with games you’ll enthusiastically buy and probably never play. Yes, it's their Autumn Sale. In the streets, the apocalyptic jockeying for TVs and blenders has started. The moon has turned blood red. And I looked and behold a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Black Friday, and sales followed with him.
]]>The Division [official site], the Clancy manshoot with MMO delusions, is getting its penultimate expansion tomorrow, along with a patch to the base game. The Survival DLC will add a new game mode in which 24 players are thrown into the full map of New York in the middle of a blizzard, where they’ll have to find warm clothing, food, water and medicine while searching for a cure to the virus that has ravaged the big apple. Oh, and there’s some big fellas chasing you too. It’s been in public beta for the past couple of weeks but now it’s hitting the big time. Ubisoft say a game of Survival can take up to two hours. Stressful.
]]>For a game about scraps of society trying to survive inside an snowy quarantine zone, The Division [official site] doesn't have much, y'know, survival. That'll change with the multiplayer shooter RPG's second expansion, Survival. It'll add survival, yeah, in the usual modern survival game ways. Pleasantly, for folks who don't like the dickholery that survival games can bring out in players, it will have the option for safe PvE cooperative play. The expansion isn't out yet but, along with the next big update, is briefly playable in a public beta for Divisioneers.
]]>The Division [official site] has today launched update 1.4, the patch so big and important that Ubisoft delayed the multiplayer shooter's expansions while they improved its the fundamentals. Ubi's goals with 1.4 include trying to make it feel "more like a shooter", making character build choices more meaningful, improving enemy AI, and revamping difficulty scaling.
]]>Ubisoft are trying to make The Division [official site] "feel more like a shooter" again, they say, similar to how it feels while you're still levelling up. They've been talking more about Update 1.4, the patch so important that Ubi delayed two upcoming expansions to focus on improving the base game. A public test server will launch on Monday but, for now, here's more on their plans.
]]>Ubisoft have delayed the next two paid DLC expansions for The Division [official site] because they feel the base game needs work first. Good! That's the way it should be done. Ubi explain, "it has become clear with your feedback and our own observations that our priority should now be on improving the core gameplay experience." Good-o! So the next two expansions are delayed, and Update 1.4 will launch separately in October to smarten the place up.
]]>Beneath The Division’s mighty impressive facsimile of New York lies a continually shifting labyrinth of sewers, subways, secret chambers and the very roots of the city itself: the pipes and machines that keep it ticking. Underground, a new expansion which launched at the tail end of June, is The Division with a procedural twist; a bit of chaos injected into the orderly, crafted world.
The dungeons of Underground sit in a strange place between procedural generation and the curated environments that you’ll find above this subterranean world. They are controlled, but also assorted in random, surprising ways. Ubisoft Reflections recently pulled back the curtain, explaining to me how the sausage is made. And, apparently, it all begins with Lego.
]]>I'm not saying that Jake Gyllenhaal killed someone then Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot met him in the woods on a winter's night with a shovel and a hacksaw to help bury the body - that would be libel. However, you tell me how you think Ubi got the Prince of Persia star into another movie based on a video game. Ubi today formally announced a film adaptation of The Division [official site], see, and Jakeo is signed up to star alongside Jessica Chastain (the sister in Crimson Peak, and Murph in Interstellar).
]]>The surface of New York City is iconic, sure, but its underside is something even better: mythic. That's where blind albino alligators grow massive in the dark, where leaking steam pipes vent through manholes, where the Mole People live, where rats larger than dogs flood tunnels in devouring hordes, where trains stop at secret doors, and there are more ghosts than you can shake a P.K.E. Meter at. So I'm delighted to see Ubisoft's first paid expansion for The Division [official site] is out now to explore down there. I'm sure it will have all of those verifiable true things.
]]>If you judged each of E3 2016's conferences by the volcanic applause following each announcement, no matter how minuscule or massive, then you probably think everything the developers said was written by God himself on a stone script. But you're smarter than that. I know you are. So, in continuation of our 'anti-E3' coverage, here are some of the moments when the creators and executives of the show were misleading, vague or "economical with the truth".
]]>During their E3 press conference yesterday, Ubisoft confirmed that The Division's [official site] first piece of paid DLC, Underground, will launch on June 28. Alongside an obligatory trailer, the publisher delved into what it's all about, what new features it houses, and where you'll be sending your agents next.
The game's second expansion, Survival, was also teased in trailer form which plans to pit players against the harshest of NYC's elements. Trailers and info after the drop.
]]>Civilization may have fallen in The Division [official site], New York ruled by might alone, but that's no reason to be a dick about it. So Ubisoft have decided to crack down harder on cheaters. Previously, people who got caught using cheats would be suspended for fourteen days for their first offence. Now, Ubisoft are going straight to permabans. Get caught cheating once and you're gone. A speedhack may help you push other players around, shaking them-upside down until XP and murdercoins rain from their shorts pockets, but it's not much use against an admin with a banhammer.
]]>Just when I thought betraying people in the Dark Zone was getting a tad boring, The Division [official site] gets a huge update that includes being able to cut the rope everyone attaches their loot to when extracting it. Oh sure, there's a new Incursion, some pretty cool gear sets, and a bunch of smaller tweaks and fixes. But really, if you're not cutting loot, you're frankly not playing to your full potential.
]]>Only last week, the new Hitman introduced 'elusive targets' who appear for a brief while and only offer one chance to take 'em down - they're pretty fun! It's not quite the same, but The Division [official site] will next week introduce daily 'high-value targets' in Update 1.2 (nicknamed 'Conflict'). Probably more importantly, it'll also add a new Incursion. And new weapons and gear. And the ability to be even more of a dick in the Dark Zone by cutting the extraction rope on someone's loot bag to swipe it. Good times!
Here, this new trailer gives an overview:
]]>Nvidia have unveiled their next top-end GPU, the GeForce GTX 1080, which they say can draw lots of really nice pictures really fast. Look, I'm sure Jeremy and his Week in Tech will have more to say about that soon, but what's interesting to me is the software they announced alongside it. Nvidia Ansel will let people take fancier screenshots, pausing the action to rearrange the camera, apply effects, take ultra-high-res snaps, make 360-degree panoramas compatible with VR goggles, and so on. Support for Ansel is coming to Nvidia GPUs for games including The Witcher 3, The Witness, and No Man's Sky, and it'll work on many cards older than the 1080 too.
]]>I found The Division's crafting system the most impenetrable part of the game when I played - I didn't yet have our crafting guide - and now it seems the developers want to de-emphasise the system a little.
This comes from the game's most recent developer livestream, kindly summarised on Reddit, which offered a preview of update 1.2. Apparently it will "get people away from crafting," and "is to be more generous with loot in terms of quality and quantity."
]]>From the fractured festivities of The Division's Manhattan to the lo-fi confusion of Bernband, urban spaces in games are drawn from many reference points and they all communicate their own ideas about cities. What they are, on what terms we relate to them and how they behave. Thomas McMullan explores how game mechanics attempt to make sense of cities.
French detectives, shopping centres and terrorist acts: how games deal with the systems that make up the city.
]]>The Division's [official site] 1.1 update has arrived, bringing the first Incursion mission. Going by the name Falcon Lost, it's an end-game challenge and Massive recommend you take three pals along if you're going to tackle it. You can try it solo or with one or two companions, but you're likely to struggle as it's built for four and doesn't scale to group size. Along with the Incursion, there's another attempt to breathe life into the Dark Zone, with randomised non-contaminated valuable loot drops once an hour. Massive have also added loot-sharing between groups and made loads of minor changes.
]]>One of the handful of things The Division does not bother explaining to its players is the crafting table. This can cause a lot of people to basically ignore it for the entire beginning of the game. Luckily, the crafting options are far more exciting in the later stages than they are early on. And if you have been hoarding materials like fabric, tools and weapons parts, then all the better. But it can also be worth your while at a low level. Let's look at how to make the most of this unassuming mechanic and the peaceable little trooper working behind that desk.
]]>There are three types of money in The Division, which is interesting when you consider that the plot is a thinly-veiled criticism of material greed. Here is a game in which the "dollar flu" has crippled the financial capital of the western world and it turns out to be an MMO-like murderthon about getting more stuff. I don't know if the game is clever or if it just lacks self-awareness. Anyway, here's how to make loads of money. The Recharge Station upgrade in the Tech Wing will also increase any Dark Zone funds gathered by 10%, but that's less important early on.
]]>The Dark Zone of Ubisoft's new apocalypse, The Division, is a mish-mash of fresh ideas and unassailable tradition. On the one hand, you have to be slightly wary of other players at all times. On the other, you basically run around killing things and collecting loot as if you were playing Diablo. But it feels like a good direction for any game about the chaotic aftermath of civilisation's downfall. Here's how to make a killing living behind the walls.
]]>The Division has been infecting everyone at RPS one by one. And I am no exception. The Dark Zone of the game, however, is a strange beast. It is far less dangerous than its rough cast of heroes and miscreants want you to believe and many have complained that there is almost no incentive to kill the other human players who roam there. It is less a Dark Zone and more of a Slightly Gloomy Zone. But despite the problems, I still think it is the most interesting part of post-Bigpox Manhattan. Let me tell you why.
]]>I wasn't around to cover the previous week's Steam Top 10 as per usual, so you'll have to wildly imagine the shape of it yourself. I can take an educated guess if you like: I'm pretty sure Soldner was a shock number one, with Limbo of the Lost and Aliens: Colonial Marines hot on its heels. Strange that they're completely gone from the latest chart, below, but that's the fickle nature of the millennial digital consumer for you, innit?
]]>In our review of The Division I wrote that I was happy enough at level 26 and that reaching the level cap of 30 did not matter much to me. Well, I have been conscripted back in to pass on my wisdom. I had to clamber up the XP tree after all and see the endgame for myself. It seems a little bare when compared to the mostly-fun climb up but there is some good stuff to focus on. Here are some of the things you could be doing while waiting for the next campaign expansion to come along.
]]>We are enjoying The Division [official site] and some of us are not even sure why. But it looks like half the world is doing the same. If you have yet to begin your tour of duty in New York's unfolding Armageddon or if you are currently taking your first steps, we have some tips and advice to get you started. Here, we tell you how to get yourself leveled as quickly as you can.
]]>If you've been wondering how much of New York City The Division [official site] actually contains and how accurate the recreation of those areas is, wonder no longer. An enterprising player who goes by the name Feanauro on Reddit has superimposed all of the game's major locations - including missions, safehouses and Dark Zone points of interest - onto the Google Map of the real life area. There are several fun games to play with this tool. You could jump into streetview and compare in-game streets and buildings to reality, you could try to work out which bits of the city might open up in future updates/dlc, or you could figure out if you've ever been to these places in real life.
]]>Some folks don't like other people. If that's you, you probably intend to play The Division without a group of close pals or a bunch of random cohorts shouting at you to revive them. Firstly: I hope you are okay, you are missing out, no man is an island, et cetera, et cetera. Secondly: I am here to help you stay in splendid isolation. Here are two strong solo builds you can create.
]]>Fans Of Things Not Staying Exactly The Same All The Time will be glad to hear that the latest weekly Steam top ten is quite a changed one from the previous week. A new number one, surprise re-entries and a loosening of Ubisoft's chokehold on the charts.
]]>I'm absolutely loving The Division. And WOW, is there a lot wrong with The Division [official site]. Ubisoft's obsessive-compulsive need to create games that feature maps designed for the obsessive-compulsive to clear may be becoming a little farcical at this point, but having spent many happy hours tidying up Far Cry Primal, I now find myself spending even more happy hours ticking off icons in their barely-an-MMO third-person shooter. And the reason is simple: the action is good. It's fun to have gun fights while gliding between cover, picking out enemies with carefully placed headshots, then being told by passers-by that without you there'd be nothing to live for.
Despite being an online game, you can solo pretty much everything apart from the Dark Zone, the game scaling for teams of one - no need to have other people spoiling it for me. It's endlessly rewarding to find a better gun, pair of gloves, mod for your jacket, or build your own, or buy one from a store. And it features checkpoints in extended quests, which is something I've never seen in an MMO before. So yes, lots of good reasons to be having a splendid time with Ubi's phenomenally successful shooter. But oh good grief, it's a bloody mess.
]]>The Division [official site] is an organisation comprised of highly trained operatives embedded among the civilian population, ready to be activated in times of crisis. They're also loot-hungry scavengers, willing to exploit any means necessary to get hold of the sweetest guns in the land. The Man won't let them shirk their responsibilities, however, and in this case The Man is Ubisoft. Today's patch should put an end to the endless loot cycle discovered by high-level players and that's not the only change. The Dark Zone is being revamped and there are numerous tweaks to skills and drop rates.
]]>As the popularity of The Division [official site] continues to grow, following a launch week that saw it break all sorts of records, its game director appears to have abandoned the post apocalyptic New York City playground for pastures new. Ryan Bernard, whose CV also includes work on the likes of EverQuest 2 and Warhammer Online, has left Ubisoft to join Hitman developer IO Interactive.
]]>Update: It looks like that exploit is being fixed tomorrow. From the v 1.02 patch notes that just came out ahead of time: "Named NPCs will no longer respawn after being killed in the Open World. This will prevent situations where players were able to kill a same named NPC over and over again." So smoke 'em if you've got 'em.
High-level players of The Division have discovered a way to make hundreds of Phoenix credits (currency used to buy high-end weapons) and collect dozens of special items in less than an hour by attacking the same NPC over and over again in quick succession. It is the closest thing to Destiny's erstwhile "loot cave" - a fruitful, if repetitive, means to get lots of goodies late in the game. And sadly, it is only useful to those who have reached level 30.
]]>Alice is at GDC, which is why it falls to me to ask in her place: WATYPWPATWPAWAPTPYPWAWPAPTPTP this weekend? If you need time to think about it, you can peruse our own selections below, with Joe and Medoly kindly standing in for Adam and Pip as they have done all week.
]]>Yup, I'm trying to make this a regular thing again. I know you're very excited about that. Bit late this week as I wasn't around for the first two days of it, but there is still MUCH TO LEARN from the top-ten best-sellers on Steam last week.
It's a strong mix of independent and mega-gazillion blockbuster; though the overall shape of the chart isn't hugely surprising, the number one winnah perhaps is.
]]>Before I started writing this intro, I thought about making some god-awful joke about Tom Clancy and maths, and sales figures and The Division [official site]. I then realised Graham had beaten me to it. In that post, however, Mr Smith wrote about The Division's impressive first day sales that set new Ubisoft records, as told by their company blog. Now, it seems The Division has broken yet more records, netting an estimated $330 million globally in its first five days - the "biggest first week ever for a new game franchise," according to the publisher.
]]>The Division came out last week, breaking Ubisoft sales records and causing all civilised behaviour between RPS staff members to break down. Sleeper agent Brendan was activated and ordered to clean up the mess. Let's see wot he thinks.
I shot wildly and inaccurately at level 5 and was enjoying The Division. At level 19, I was grinding side missions and was not enjoying The Division. At level 23 I was sending little seeker drones full of explosives into rooms packed with angry men (I was enjoying The Division again). I could write the whole review like this but I think it would get a little repetitive.
]]>Graham: Tom Clancy's The Division is out. It's a mish-mash of genres: a cover shooter, with realistic weapons, an emphasis on multiplayer and co-op, in which you kill enemies in order to level up and find new loot as in an RPG, set among the looted streets of a post-viral collapse New York. It feels like a collection of well-observed trends, packaged together under a covering of very pretty snow. It's much more fun than I, at least, was expecting.
If I wanted to make you click the read more button, I'd say it was a better RPG than The Witcher 3. Our full review will be along early next week, but until then you can come read me justify that statement in conversation with Adam.
]]>Why did Tom Clancy graduate with honours from business school? Because his Division was good.
Which is both a terrible maths joke and a topical maths joke, because Tom Clancy's The Division has sold more in its first 24 hours than any other Ubisoft game in history, according to the Ubisoft Blog.
]]>I don't know what a 'meme' is anymore. First they used them for science, then memes escaped a lab as a virus in a monkey, then Internet turned the viruses into jokes, and then the virus infected every other form of joke. (I think, at this point, we're either safe or have ourselves become memes?)
All I know for certain is that delightful recreations of video game box art using cheery stock art have recently filled my corner of the Internet, and I think you might like them.
]]>The Division [official site] has ensnared at least two members of RPS in its deadly streets, and as we creep through cover toward a better understanding of the game, we've taken a moment to reflect on the games that came before. Specifically, the games that carry the name of author Tom Clancy. From Rainbow Six to Ghost Recon and HAWX, the Clancyverse contains some of the finest tactical shooters that the PC has ever seen - and a few duds as well. Jake Tucker investigated the triumphs, the failures, and the origins of the Clancy game.
]]>Everyone in The Secret RPS Chatroom Of Mystery is currently downloading all 30.5GBs of Tom Clancy's The Division, which is out now depending on how you bought it. We either like the idea of zoning out to the ringing bells of Ubisoft progress mechanics, or we're curious to leap into its Dark Zone and befriend and fight other players for valuable materials. If you're already in and playing however, then you might be disappointed to learn that some of the post-launch DLC we wrote about last week won't be available on PC till 30 days after it appears on XBone.
]]>A run-down of the previous week's top-selling Steam titles is something I used to do regularly, but a combination of it tending to be fairly unchanging week-to-week and being a feckless human being who can't stand to do the same thing for long meant I fell out the habit. These are changed times, though: with indiepocalypses here and flash sales there, the Steam charts are now wildly changeable, so I like to look in from time to time, like an old aunt raising a withered eyebrow at reports of what her nephews are up to at university. This week: a whole lot of Ubisoft, not a lot of XCOM and an unofficial Hunger Games (or an unofficial Running Man, if you prefer the awful classics).
]]>It's gone five o'clock, which must mean... ah yes, here we are, Ubisoft have sent me something new about The Division [official site]. Following pre-load and unlock times, trailers galore, and a vision of my city filling up with dead improv troupes, here we have more word on the shooter-RPG's first year of post-release content plans.
Yes, obviously this is Ubi gabbing about a load of paid DLC before the game's even out, but they are also talking about new things they plan to add in free updates.
]]>Even as an old fogey, I'm interested in knowing precisely when The New Hotness will unlock and let me play. This might've once been so I could plan a night heavy on caffeine and light on sleep, but now it's just nice to know if I'll get to play an hour or create my character before I take my mint tea to bed.
Pre-loading for the next New Hotness, Tom Clancy's The Division [official site], starts tomorrow on PC and Ubisoft have explained when they'll let folks into the virus-trashed New York City around its March 8th launch. Bad news for the UK, I'm afraid.
]]>With The Division [official site] coming out next week, Ubisoft are releasing a flood of trailers. You can now watch the official launch trailer for a parade of press quotes, dramatic music, and voiceovers. Or you might prefer a trailer focused on technological PC prettybits. Or, if you want to drill down into it, another trailer gets technical with the game's Nvidia Gameworks effects (you might want to nod knowingly at terms like 'HBAO+' and 'PCSS'). You might find something right up your Fifth Avenue.
]]>What defines a microtransaction? How micro is "micro", and does the name refer to the size of those payments, the location you make them from, or the nature of the goods you're buying? That's the quandary raised by Ubisoft. A community manager tweeted that "There will be no microtransactions, and definitely no P2W" in their new online shooter, The Division. This was simply repeating an answer given in interviews back in January, but the catch is that the game will have DLC, and that DLC will include "vanity items", which are the kind of thing normally sold via microtransactions.
So RPS asks you: what is a microtransaction?
]]>Hey there, chum! Need something new to fuel your paranoid survivalist fantasies, a new excuse to buy a machete and 300 cans of beans or to see other people as mere obstacles on your path to a long and miserable life? I've got just the thing for you.
Inspired by the doomsday scenario of The Division [official site], Ubisoft have released a wee simulator that'll let you see your very own city fall into chaos as a virus spreads and death tolls mount. For me, it does look like a grim Edinburgh Festival Simulator as bodies start piling up in The Stand Comedy Club.
]]>We’re a month and a half into 2016 and it’s already been a vintage year. Firewatch, American Truck Simulator, The Witness and XCOM 2 are a varied and delightful quartet, and we’ve also seen the rebirth of Homeworld and several smaller, stranger, delights.
But what’s next? RATHER A LOT. Far Cry: Primal, Hitman, The Division, Shardlight and SUPERHOT for starters. Adam and Graham convened to discuss the last of the winter harvest.
]]>Tom Clancy's The Division [official site] is returning to beta this weekend, but this time it's open to everyone. If you're tempted, you can start pre-loading the game now via Uplay or Steam, and find out when the beta unlocks in your region below.
]]>Ubisoft's open-world shooter RPG Tom Clancy's The Division is due to launch in a month, but we'll all get to play it a little before then. Ubi have run closed beta tests for gits with keys for a while, but now they've announced an open beta for everyone. Here on PC, we'll get to play from Friday, February 19th until the end of Sunday the 21st. After reading Adam's recent preview I'm more interested in its snowy deserted New York City than the RPG-y shootyshoots but sure, I'll give it a go.
]]>I remember when everything between January and May was a wasteland, but nowadays you'd be forgiven for not having had the chance to try The Division's closed beta this weekend even if you did get in. Maybe you were playing The Witness, Darkest Dungeon, Dragon's Dogma or building a spreadsheet of names to give your XCOM 2 soldiers. Or maybe you simply hadn't read Adam's hands on to understand why you should bother.
Good news! Said beta has been extended by 24 hours so it will now cease on Tuesday, February 2nd at 11am GMT, 12pm CET, 6 am EST and 3 am PST. If you've received an invite, then there's still time.
]]>Last week, I spent a few hours playing The Division [official site] in Malmö, hometown of developers Ubisoft Massive. After the play session, I sat down with Creative Director Magnus Jansén to talk about the game's mechanics and setting, but we also discussed the studio's history as a PC developer. The latter topic came up because The Division has one of the finest PC-specific version I've seen in recent times.
]]>The Division [official site] is, initially, a confusing game. All of the individual pieces make a certain kind of sense, but the combination doesn't quite hang together. It's like ordering tempura and getting a thick, creamy, eggy mayonnaise on the side in place of a good Tentsuyu dipping sauce. Both parts of the dish are enticing on their own but the combination is an acquired taste at best. I spent three hours playing the game this week and I'm still not sure if this is a taste I'll ever be fully on board with - it's an unusual game though and far more interesting than it's gruff near-future shootybangs had led me to expect.
]]>We haven't posted about Tom Clancy's The Division [official site] since June last year, which seems too long to go without checking in on Ubisoft's online shooter. The latest trailer is a good one to watch too, since it breaks down how the game's various parts fit together: from killing men on the streets of post-apocalyptic New York, to the stats and weapons upgrades that allows you acquire, to how guns are just one part of cleaning up the neighbourhood. Find it below.
]]>Following recent word of a delay for Tom Clancy's The Division [official site], Ubisoft used their E3 event to give it a new release date: March 8th, 2016.
Ubi also showed off a bit of the mostly-co-op shooter's player vs. player action. It goes down in an area called the Dark Zone (imaginative), where you can find fancy loot if you venture in but run the risk of teamies betraying you, shooting your face off, and stealing your hard-stolen shinies. This one is going to ruin friendships, isn't it?
]]>Oh, for goodness' sake! Only the other day I was wondering what had been going on with Tom Clancy's The Division [official site], and whether the co-op- action-RPG shooter had been delayed or what. Ubisoft could've slipped in mention of a delay alongside the news that a fourth studio had joined development but no, no, they have to have their nice, clean, tidy 'message'. And this way, old muggins here writes two stories about the game instead of one.
So here, look, The Division has been delayed from its unlikely-looking release window of 2015 into early 2016. You really are a rotter, Yann Ubisoft.
]]>Ooh! Did you hear that? Just now, carried on the wind. It sounded like... clearly scripted banter from an Ubisoft gameplay demonstration. We've barely heard from Tom Clancy's The Division [official site] since its showing at E3 last year, and I'd half-wondered if it might be mired in development hell. It'd been delayed once before, and was awfully quiet for a game supposedly due this year.
Well, with E3 nearing (just over a month until I start drinking at my desk), Ubisoft have announced that another studio joined in to help out development. Ubisoft Annecy are the fourth lot working on The Division, and I'd wager they're working on its unlockable, upgradeable persistent bases.
]]>I should get better video game chums by the time Tom Clancy's The Division comes out. A five-minute staged "gameplay demonstration" fresh out of E3 shows friends being friendly, supporting each other, using abilities carefully, and generally making the game look awfully good fun. None of that will ever happen with the people I play Dota 2 with. We won't carefully orchestrate and execute plans, we'll run around doing as we please, whether that's chasing the glory of murdering particularly tough enemies or pausing to admire holographic reactions of people caught in the disaster. It'll be dreadful.
]]>I feel it's important to stress that we're not just dealing with any old division here. This is The Division, and damn it that means something probably. Ubisoft's equal parts shooty and paranoia-y MMO is still a largely unknown quantity (E3 demo contents aside), but I'm sure it wouldn't be given the real life equivalent of a Twitter verified account without a good reason. Unfortunately, we'll have to wait a bit longer to find out what exactly that reason is, as The Division's been pushed to The Year 2015.
]]>Occasionally at GDC, there's a big new game announcement, but that's not really what the week-long event is for. The Game Developers Conference is instead where designers, programmers and artists go to pull back the heavy tarp of secrecy and reveal the gross, technical innards of openness and sharing. It's in that spirit - plus the spirit of self-promotion and bragging - that we're seeing so much detail of so many different game engines. Including, in the video embedded below, Ubisoft's Snowdrop Engine. It's being built by Massive Entertainment for The Division, and it's very pretty and smart.
]]>Earlier this year, Ubisoft surprised precisely no one by announcing that trigger-happy paranoia propaganda MMO The Division would, in fact, be coming to PC after all. You know, for three whole seconds there, I was kinda but not really a little bit worried. There is, however, a difference between an earnest PC development push and a port so sloppy it ought to be mummified in paper towels and flushed down the toilet. So where will The Division end up? Well, to hear developer Massive Entertainment tell it, there's nothing to worry about here.
]]>In the least surprising news of the year, it looks like The Divi sorry: definitely in some way involved Tom Clancy's The Division will be making the jump to PC when it's released towards the end of next year. Back in June, Ubisoft were asking players to sign a petition to bring the title our way, Jim rather rightly implying that it would have no effect and the decision had already been made. Now in a video from Massive's Fredrik Rundqvist, Executive Producer on the game, the almost inevitable has been theatrically announced. See below.
We're hearing reports that Ubisoft's reps are encouraging PC gamers to sign a petition, this one, if they want to see Ubi's spectacular looking post-apocalyptic shooter, Tom Clancy's The Division, on PC. Frankly, we'd quite like to see the game on PC, because the E3 reveal (see that below) was so strong. This seems a bit of a weird way to go about asking for it, though.
Enough of this dance of justification. Just bring it to PC, Ubi.
]]>
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