There is a reason major publishers are bringing their biggest games to mobile devices as generally watered down versions. It's because mobile dwarfs the rest of the video game platform market combined. It's a huge headline when Skyrim sells 60 million copies, or when Grand Theft Auto V surpasses 175 million, but no one seems to bat an eye when Candy Crush routinely brings in 255 million monthly active users and has totalled 3.4 billion downloads. Mobile is king (and King coincidentally makes Candy Crush), so it's hardly a shock to see Blizzard debuting Diablo Immortal, Activision serving up Call of Duty Mobile, and in the future, Ubisoft bringing The Division Resurgence to fans.
Speaking about the latter, with The Division Resurgence coming to iOS and Android in the autumn, as part of my time in Los Angeles for Summer Game Fest, I had the chance to play Resurgence alongside a member of the development team at Ubisoft. Rather unsurprisingly, Resurgence plays like a simplified version of The Division 2, meaning you get the same style of cover shooter matched with looter elements and multiplayer systems. On the surface it feels and looks like a The Division game, even if it lacks a lot of the complexities and nuances of the series due to being created for a technologically-limited platform.
The gameplay works a lot like many other mobile shooters in that you have a touchscreen joystick on the left hand side of the screen and operated with your left thumb that is used for movement and then can aim by using your right thumb on the right of the screen. There are then a collection of touchscreen buttons that can be pressed to use abilities, activate zoomed-in aiming, snapping to cover to protect yourself, use healing items, and so forth. Ubisoft isn't reinventing the wheel with this one, it's just taking the known formula and adapting it to The Division's identity.
Anyone who has played the original or sequel of Massive Entertainment's shooter will know that this means you get a game set in a post-apocalyptic world where you have to level up and earn better gear to take on more demanding challenges and foes to (you guessed it) earn better items and take on more difficult tasks - the cycle then repeats and repeats and repeats. Resurgence looks to serve exactly this up, but in a way that is manageable for mobile users playing with less responsive controls and on much smaller screens. You're not overwhelmed with enemies in the same way as the main games, and aren't tasked with being lighting quick with your reactions to deal with any threats that stand in your path. You'll instead need to battle with the controls to be able to take down any foes and bosses (who have unique abilities and appearances) to earn gear and experience to improve your character.
In the spirit of progression, Resurgence seems to have quite the significant systems in place. There are skill trees to indulge in that can be used to build your character in a way that befits your playstyle. Then there are broad customisation segments that allow you to easily swap any gear you've found, all while inspecting it to see how its slight statistical differences might affect the build you are attempting to construct. Those nerdy and refined systems that {Destiny 2, Borderlands}, MMO players and so forth go crazy for are all here still, albeit as I have mentioned a few times before, just in a more watered down and manageable way.
As for the performance of the game, while there were a few hiccups regarding the movement touch joystick disappearing (which will no doubt be ironed out by launch), the game also seemed to run really well, even if the graphics didn't come across as particularly striking at all. The multiplayer suite also seemed to be rather intuitive and easy to manage, meaning should you want to team up with up to four friends, Resurgence will be able to accommodate you.
I can't see The Division Resurgence poaching any The Division 2 players anytime soon, but for players who want a taste of this franchise and don't want to go all in on a PC or a console, this is set to be a great place to start. No doubt there will be some disappointing mobile monetisation effort planned for launch that will take some of the wind out of Resurgence's sails (as was the case with Diablo Immortal) but if Ubisoft decides to introduce a more player-friendly way of monetising the game, Resurgence is shaping up to be another great addition to the mobile gaming space.
