Division 2's raids offer unique mechanics, bosses, and more

The Division didn't quite live up to the raid-like experience many players had hoped for, but it sounds like the sequel has learned from those shortcomings.

Massive and the other developers of The Division dipped their toes into raids with what they called Incursions, but they weren't quite the raid-like experiences many players had hoped for. That's probably why the confirmation of The Division 2's raids got one of the biggest cheers from the crowd at last year's E3 conference. There was just one question: what are the differences between Incursions and raids? Mathias Karlson, game director at Massive, cleared it up:

"The last Incursion we made, Lost Signal, I think is the first Incursion that started getting close to what a raid could be like. We felt like we really should and we really want to go full-on raids in The Division 2."

"So what that meant for us was, first of all, a group of eight-player content, and that brings a lot of opportunities for us in terms of constructing challenges. And also that it's a completely bespoke made area just for the raid with unique mechanics and unique bosses and unique challenges," Karlson explained.

"You said puzzling and I think it's exactly that. It's not just crushingly difficult because the enemies are so powerful. You have to figure out how to actually progress and how to beat that boss, find its weakness and work with that weakness against it."

That definitely sounds interesting, but we already know that the first one won't be ready until after the initial launch. The good news is that Karlson says it'll come weeks, not months, after March 15, so we'll get a chance to reach level 30 (the game's maximum level) and maybe form a clan before we test our skills in the first of many raids.

What kind of improvements and changes do you want to see?