I was on the fence in regards to The Division 2. I liked the first one, but it wore pretty thin once I reached the end of the game, with practically nothing to do outside of getting repeatedly griefed in the Dark Zone. But Ubisoft has been on a post-launch support roll lately, with most of their games sporting a pretty long tail, and of all their games, The Division 2 is probably the most open out of all of them. With games like For Honor, Ghost Recon Wildlands, and Rainbow Six still getting updated, and to a lesser extent Far Cry 5 and New Dawn, it’s getting easier to invest in an Ubi developed title knowing that there will still be something to do long after the game has been beaten.
Ironically enough, it wasn’t the endgame for The Division that bothered me, it was the in-between stuff that got old. The missions were decent enough, but making a bee-line from one mission to another with practically nothing to do in the meantime was what ultimately killed the game for me. So far, it seems that Ubi has remedied that complaint, almost to a fault. It seems like every block there’s something happening, whether it’s a public execution to foil, or a propaganda speaker to interrupt, or a stronghold to capture, etc. There’s enough to make a simple trip from point A to point B into something treacherous and distracting, in a good way (for now). There’s plenty of action to be had outside of the missions, but it remains to be seen if it will hold up, or eventually become a nuisance.
At the time of this writing, I’ve put about 12 hours into The Division 2, which is obviously not a ton of time, especially since I’ve barely moved past the initial starting zone (Downtown East?) so it remains to be seen what kind of legs this game has. With my current rotation battling for my time, it could be that I will distribute my play with it more evenly and the burnout that happened with The Div 1 may not rear its ugly head.
We will see!
