Making sure that nobody forgets about their forthcoming action-RPG hybrid The Division, Ubisoft showcased some brand new gameplay from the highly anticipated title at their E3 2015 presentation.
Starting things off in the Darkzone, an area ravaged by radiation, disorder and map-jamming nastiness, Game Director Ryan Bernard set the scene for a simultaneous adversarial and cooperative multiplayer experience where your friends might help you out one minute, before turning on you the next.
Coming across a group of AI foes who are loitering about in the Darkzone’s snowy streets, the player group is about to take them on before another conclave of player-controlled Division agents appears from the bowels of the Darkzone. After a tense confrontation, the AI foes open fire on the second group and and all hell breaks loose as a result.
Here, we see The Division seamlessly switching between a number of different gameplay elements as the player groups engage in cover shooting, flanking tactics and the deployment of gadgets such as mines and turrets.
This latest footage also rams home the point just how much The Division seemingly borrows from MMO titles, too. With enemies that have specific levels of difficulty, crates that can be looted for upgradeable gear and elite level foes who can’t really be tangled with until your group is much more powerful, The Division is certainly much more than just a regular third-person shooter.
Where the real allure of The Division comes into play however, is in the aspect of trust that the game toys with in multiplayer. In the demo, the first group of players turned on the second group at the end of the demo, owing to the fact that second team had lost one of their numbers earlier on in the game.
With the second team down, out and stripped of their hard-won loot, a single member of the first team broke communications with his former buddies before gunning them all down and robbing all the gear for himself. It’s this sort of human element that looks like it will elevate The Division above other shooters on the market when it releases for PlayStation 4 on March 8, 2016.
Luckily, some of us won’t have to wait that long as Ubisoft has announced that a beta for The Division will be released for PS4 early next year with details on this being announced soon.