E3 2015 - Tom Clancy's The Division Hands On

From the moment that The Division was announced I knew it was going to be something special, little did I know just how special. It took two years, but E3 2015 was finally the place for people to be able to sit down and go hands on with the game and I, again was lucky enough to play it.

All I knew going in is that what we would be trying out would be the newly announced Zero Dark section of the map, a place where the military left all their stuff behind as they ran out of New York as fast as they could. In this section of the world, the virus is still lingering around, so all the gear you collect there is actually still carrying the contagion, but as it's all good stuff people venture into the space to get it and this is what we were going to do.

I was placed into a three man team, with two other players, one I did not know and the other was Daniel from Press-Start  At first we were all running around like crazy people trying to get used to the controls, moving in and out of cover and climbing over things, until we all made our way to the entry to the dark space. We climbed up and over and then we were in trouble, as none of us was talking, we were all trying to take it in, listening to the developer who was helping us as he pointed things out. Then trouble really did hit the fan as we then found some enemies blocking our way.

Of course as a brand new team we immediately broke ranks and went to fight on our own, but while we did this we were still able to take down these foes with little effort, it was a nice way to get introduced to the combat mechanics on hand. After this my two team mates collected their loot and we pushed on to the next space, where more loot was found and then it was time to head to the evac point, but we would not be the only ones heading there. In fact the area was already occupied by some nasty AI foes, sadly at this point we were spotted and all hell broke loose.

We were still attempting to operate on our own, doing the things we wanted to win, but it proved to be a strategy that was doomed to fail as running full steam ahead into a group of enemies only resulted in me being taken down, but as this was a team based game, I had some time before I died, which allowed one of my team mates to actually support me and get me back into the fight. Then things took a turn for the worse, the other teams arrived.

The other two teams then started to fight the AI guys, which gave us time to get our stuff together, it was at this point our dev handler reminded us to use our gadgets more, something I had forgotten about. I had a turret I could deploy at my feet or throw further away to help with the crowds and I also had the pulse, which allowed all the members of my squad to be able to see where enemies were located on their screens, helpful for when they were taking cover around the place. We were able to get close to the extraction point before I died, but the counter for the extraction was going, I don’t know who started it, but it was not us.

Over the next 5 or so minutes things went back and forth, we started the extraction countdown and then we died, with all three of us dead, the counter stopped and then started again from another team. It was utter chaos, we fought tooth and nail for each kill we got, the timer for extraction was stopped and started over and over again, until eventually our time with the game was up. We were done and in the end not one of the three teams were able to get extracted, but the best part, I did not care.

I had fun playing the game, I enjoyed myself and while it took us some time to get our team work together, there was no denying that with a group of mates The Division could seriously eat away at your life. While I did not get to wander out into the world and experience what was to be found there, I can’t imagine I would not get lost and love every moment with it.