Tom Clancy's The Division 2 — Media reaction and sales forecast
On March 15, Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 was released on PC, PS4 and Xbox One. We tell you how the novelty was met by players and the press, and also evaluate its possible sales.
About the game
Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 is a continuation of a series of multiplatform games from the Swedish Massive Entertainment. This is a cooperative loot shooter in the open world, designed for four players
The plot of The Division 2 continues the story of the first part. The player assumes the role of a government agent who helps rebuild society after a global cataclysm — the plague epidemic.
As in many Ubisoft games, the player will have to open locations, perform plot and side quests, destroy gangs of opponents in an open world divided into zones. PvP arenas called “Dark Zones” have migrated here from the original game, where users can fight each other for excellent equipment, including a variety of weapons. In general, as reviewers write, the gameplay component and mechanics of the second The Division are not much different from those in the first.
But the entourage has undergone changes. Instead of the snow-covered and narrow streets of New York presented in the first part, The Division 2 takes players to a more spacious, full of light and bright colors Washington. Moreover, the developers have tried to recreate the local attractions in the smallest detail.
The cost of the game for PS4 and Xbox One in Russia is 4499 rubles. The price of the PC version in Uplay and Epic Games Store stores is 1999 rubles. Moreover, in the Ubisoft store, you can get a 20% discount right at the start by paying 100 Uplay coins. The game was never released on Steam.
Media ratings
The Division 2 is the perfect sequel, but not a revolutionary game at all, as a number of publications write. Some reviewers lacked significant changes related to the gameplay. Others say that “there is no need to fix what didn’t break.”
“The Division offered truly exceptional third-person gameplay, and in The Division 2 it has only improved. Here everything is as it should be, from aiming and shooting to a system of shelters and the use of skills. Can the gameplay be called revolutionary? No. But the fans don’t need it to be called that.”— Attack of the Fanboy
One of the goals of Massive Entertainment was to give players more endgame content than there was in The Division. At one time, the first part suffered from the lack of high-quality endgame content and lost a significant share of the audience. And after the recent scandal with Anthem, the issue of endgame in MMO shooters has become particularly acute.
“The Division 2 endgame is much better than its predecessor. I think it’s even better than Destiny 2 and far superior to Anthem.”— Gamersky
There are some problems, but this game illustrates how to make a loot shooter in the open world, taking the right direction from the very beginning. Destiny 2 tried to solve this problem in the past, but Anthem, it seems, will not be able to solve it.”— PC Invasion
Nevertheless, there is something in The Division 2 that the journalists did not like — this is the script. The developers clearly saved on the presentation of the plot and the disclosure of the conflict, according to the reviewers.
“My concerns about the stale narrative were not unfounded. The enemies, for the most part, are faceless. Yes, even your own faction, which the game pays more attention to than the opponents, is hardly remembered. If the lack of a strong story is against the rules for you, then there are many other options for you.”— Destructoid
There is also an opinion more than once that players may have problems with loot extraction.
Without good equipment, the player will not be able to pass the zone with higher-level opponents. And such equipment does not come across so often.
“The biggest problem of The Division 2 is its terrible pace. I spent several hours in the game without progressing at all. Here, unlike many other games where loot is important, I didn’t find a single interesting item while completing mission after mission. I spent more time sorting through all the junk than collecting equipment or selecting stats. The cherry on the cake was the moment when I was killed by some opponent; this game actually reproached me for my outdated weapons. And I thought: “Yes, I would have used a better gun if you had given it to me!”.— Cheat Code Central
The PC version of The Division 2 was rated 83 points on Metacritic.
The score for the game on PS4 was 78 points, and the aggregator has not yet counted the average score for Xbox One.
Player Reviews
First of all, players pay attention that the game has technical problems at the start. Many were prevented by a bug related to drones and shields. It resets the effect of the newly activated ability and sends it to cooldown. Some players had a game crash when using drones. There are also smaller bugs.
In addition, users on Metacritic mentioned the instability of the servers, and were also horrified by the patch of the first day, which weighs 90 GB.
However, actively scolding the technical component of the title, players do not forget to praise its appearance, the feeling of shooting and the variety of weapons.
But the absence of an offline company in The Division 2 caused dissatisfaction among many.
Forecast
The first Tom Clancy’s The Division was purchased by about 5 million players on all platforms in the first week. Ubisoft called its release sales the most successful in its history. It was then that a real outflow of users happened in the game — due to the lack of endgame content, downgraded graphics, as well as for a number of other reasons. Although Ubisoft managed to fill up the audience by consistently solving problems.
Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 managed to be at the top of the UK chart in the first week, but its initial sales were 80% lower than its predecessor. However, here we are talking about retail, not sales in numbers. Nevertheless, the difference in release sales compared to the original still looks very high.
We add that the abundance of technical problems, a weak plot and other flaws of The Division 2, which have already been mentioned here, can scare off a lot of players. And the scandal with Ubisoft added fuel to the fire even before the release due to the lack of a game on Steam. Recently, the audience has been negatively perceiving the transfer of titles to the Epic Games Store.
Nevertheless, Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 got off to a pretty good start. She was also lucky to get close almost in the absence of competitors, since the recently released Anthem can hardly oppose her with anything. Given this, The Division 2 promises to achieve at least the same result as the original game in the first week: about 5-6 million players.
