The Division 2: Battle for Brooklyn

You need to find a semi-missing person. You know where she is, and you take a shortcut through a sewer system in Brooklyn. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a teenager comes running towards you, screaming for help, and before you can react, four psychopaths in firefighter outfits and with flamethrowers have turned the child into slag. And so this DLC begins.

Battle for Brooklyn is a new location for The Division 2, and it's beautifully done, albeit not particularly large, with a strong focus on one of the factions you've previously fought against. Others are elsewhere, however, and New York in general has been re-invaded. In other words, there's a lot of extra content, but to call it new might be a bit of an exaggeration.

That's okay. The Division 2 is a pretty good looter-shooter, and unless I've missed something, you can now carry even more stuff in your fancy backpack. And since I've mostly played it with new characters ahead the expansion, I had forgotten how powerful my primary character had become.

It was perhaps a little surprising to see a DLC now, as the game is, after all, more than six years old. But it's still visually stunning, insanely detailed, and I really believe I'm in New York. The only thing missing - and something that the first The Division perhaps still does better - is the number of civilian NPCs. No matter how many people have been wiped out, in a city of over eight million people, there will be quite a few on the streets running around and gathering what they can. It all seems a bit too deserted, and it would have been cool if civilians had been rummaging around and other than just hostages waiting to be freed.

If you've played The Division 2 before, you'll find a more optimised crafting menu, but unless there's something I haven't unlocked, you're still limited to two of the most powerful weapons and equipment. The rest must be collected as complete sets.

Many things still require a bit of brainpower: crates must be opened, locks must be smashed to pieces, electronic control panels must be obliterated. Taking control points is familiar, but generally in a more open design, so that they can be attacked from multiple points and angles at the same time, which is both good and bad, because they also have to be defended. However, I am extremely annoyed by one particular mission in which automated rocket launchers - which normally require their energy source to be identified and shot apart - are somewhat unrealistically invulnerable, as you cannot identify anything because you are instantly killed without much chance of moving on. Otherwise, most battles and scenarios are at the expected high level.

As before, the narrative is based on story-driven missions, combined with small side missions. If you are the type who collects Trophies/Achievements, there is really a lot to get started with. Unfortunately, the narrative is also quite dystopian - especially considering in 2020 we laughed at the idea of a devastating pandemic that could bring an entire country to its knees, or an incompetent and corrupt president who could throw a country into chaos - yes, there are some reflections and perspectives on the real world that Ubisoft has clearly placed in the game with full intent. The Division 2 has become a little too realistic, a little too quickly. All we need now is a foreign power to invade... but the game already has that in the form of Black Tusk.

There are two things. Firstly, there are clearly a lot of players who have returned. When you're on a team with people who know what they're doing, it's great to breeze through the content in a competent group, but at the same time, it's a bit problematic, as the game scales itself accordingly and enemies come flooding in. However, it gives a much better sense of what is actually a conflict on the scale of a medium-sized civil war, rather than often just feeling like you're part of a gang conflict in a small town. Secondly, there are some things from the base game that turn out to be a little different than expected. It's not exactly a retcon, but more that there are layers and alternative angles that you might not have considered. Or to put it another way: it's not just Johnny Somali who has problems with DeepFakes, as some of the main characters in the story here do too.

I've had a good time with the game. If you rush through it - which is easy if you already have a top-geared agent at your disposal - you'll be done in 6-7 hours, while it quickly takes 10 hours if you want to see everything. And you can add to that all the new locations, opportunities, side missions in the main area of New York, and a new invasion mode on top of that. In short: Combined with the latest update, there is easily enough new content for many extra hours of gameplay.