Ubisoft announced The Division 2 earlier this week, finally confirming that the much-rumored sequel is in development at Massive Entertainment (with support from several other Ubisoft development teams). The company also hosted a community livestream about the franchise where it touched upon the motivation behind making The Division 2 and how far development on the game has come.
During the stream, The Division creative director Justin Gerighty revealed that The Division 2 has been in development since before the first game even released. The team began to discuss concepts for the second game before The Division launched and then a small team at the studio began to properly work on the follow-up “pretty much the month after.” With The Division having released in March 2016, that would mean that The Division 2 has been in development for a little over two years.
This is good news for fans who are eager to see what other concepts Gerighty and Co. had in mind for the series’ future. Although Ubisoft’s initial announcement did not confirm a release window for the game, some have speculated that The Division 2 could be released in March 2019, which would be three years after the original launched. Three years could be long enough for Massive Entertainment and the other studios to complete work on the game, making an early 2019 release date all the more likely.
Many fans would argue that three years gives Massive long enough time to address the issues players had with the first Division and to make sure that they don’t happen with The Division 2. One particular criticism of the first game was that it had a huge hacking problem, with one professional game networking expert suggesting that fixing the hacking problems would take a complete rewrite. Many players of The Division suggested that the game’s rampant hacking was why they chose to stop playing the game but perhaps the developers will be able to include better anti-hacking solutions in The Division 2’s foundations.
Moreover, some players complained that they were unsatisfied with The Division’s core gameplay experience, which led the developers to delay the game’s DLC expansions in order to fix them. Massive Entertainment has surely learned its lesson from that situation and the teams will be able to bring that experience into the development process of The Division 2, spending the two years+ development cycle wisely.
The Division 2 is currently in development. A release date and platforms have not yet been announced.
Source: Twitch (via PCGamesN)
