Real Talk By: Knowledge 
After delays, rescheduling, and countless hours of speculation, The Division is here.

I’m not going to go in-depth with the specifics of the actual game (coming out on March 8th), but this is my brief weekend long opinion on what I saw.  I’m going to touch on three quick main points that I think are the highs and two more I believe need to be addressed before the official release.  Again, this is just the beta so there’s no telling how much will change between now and release day.

In an ambitious effort to combine the best parts of several game genres, it would seem that Tom Clancy’s: The Division has captured the attention of gamers all around the world. The game combines, multiplayer, crafting, looting, 3rd person shooting, and building. Here are a few of the high points from the limited access beta.

• First, the game graphically, even in beta, looks phenomenal.  It’s a 1:1 scale of Manhattan in New York and it is gorgeous. The area around you is somewhat destructive,  but it doesn’t go as far as something like Battlefield where you can blow buildings down.
• Second, it is a 3rd person shooter! Thank you Massive Entertainment! Finally, a break from the typical 1st person shooter games that have taken over the world.
• Third, the multiplayer arena called “The Dark Zone” is a 24 person player arena filled with NPC’s and loot-able chests and a fantastic mix of frustration, challenges, and unlimited fun and loot.  Be warned, do not go in alone, because at any time those other players can turn on you and take your loot for themselves.
The low points of the game are mostly related to the DZ and honestly, I feel the developers will address this issue considering the data they will collect.

• Players who turn on other players are marked as “rogue” and then have a red icon above their heads.  The penalty for being killed as rogue is slim to none.  The even bigger problem is that if they never get killed they simply operate within their group or as one person going around killing all of these other players that are trying to extract their loot.  Not everyone in the zone is going to be evil but given the often times twisted nature of people playing video games they’ll just kill for the fun of it and ruin someone’s day.  I don’t think they should get rid of it because it does add a huge element of fun, but I think the developers should create a larger penalty for being rogue too long or for too often.
• The other low point was how the NPC’s spawn into locations.  My group and I would be running through a part of the city and the enemies would spawn literally almost within our players parameters so it was just a mesh of two people.  I’m sure they’ll address this problem because this creates chaos and immediate death when you have 4 NPC’s that spawn on your position without any warning.

The Division looks to be a promising game, and to me it certainly lived up to the hype that has been generating since they announced it back in 2013.  I’m sure with more story missions and areas to unlock with the official game release, after seeing the beta, I’ll be playing it on launch day.

#TheDivision @PlayLegit