[TpGS 2019] The Division 2 – An interview with the Senior Game Designer, James Norris

Ahead of the release of Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 this March, we were lucky to be able to have an interview with the Senior Game Designer of The Division 2, James Norris at TpGS 2019. He has told us many new details on the game content and the changes made from the first Division.

Battle-royale is one of the most common features in shooter games now, but James Norris tell us that it is not coming to The Division 2 yet. However compared to the first title, some significant changes have been made for the Dark Zone in The Division 2. There will be 3 dark zones now instead of one, and the gear will be normalized (so everyone will have a similar level) to create a more fair play environment. For those who like the old Dark Zone, there is also an Occupied Dark Zone where you can get really competitive with your best gears.

When asked whether personal shooting skills or teamwork bring more benefit in the game, James Norris thinks that it all depends on the players’ play style. Some like to be in the frontlines, while some love to stay back and be a sharpshooter. Shooting skill is of course important in a third-person shooter like The Division 2, but good teamwork is going to help you out a lot too.

The new Rogue system is having different levels of Rogue status, which means you can go rogue if you want to, you can steal chests or take away your allies’ loot instead of taking care of them. But these have consequences. As you build up your Rogue status, you will be disavowed and people will come to hunt you down. You can go into a Thieves’ Den to reset your status for a bonus.

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You also can go full Rogue and trigger the Manhunt status. By this, everybody would know you are a Rogue, they will know where you are. You can get bigger rewards if you successfully killed those who came to hunt you down, but if you died, you will lose everything you have including all the EXP and the passive abilities you gained as you level up.

After considering the communities’ feedback, the Dark Zone is now smaller so there is a higher possibility of running into other players. There will be 3 brand new factions for The Division 2 – the Outcasts, the Hyenas and the True Sons with their unique strengths and weaknesses. According to James Norris, the AI is now cleverer too, it would be a challenging task to counter them.

Regarding the server issue, James Norris says that they have improved the infrastructure at Ubisoft a lot as well as working with third-party companies to ensure serviceability. He emphasises that The Division 2 will be more stable than The Division 1.

While on the cheating issues, Ubisoft has made improvements on their own in-house cheat detection and server, so there will be less possibility for data modification. They will keep a close watch on the issues when the game is live as well. Toxicity was a big concern in the first Division, and James Norris tells us that this time they are going to disable VoIP of those toxic players so they can’t talk.

Other than these, The Division 2 will be having a Clan system of 50 players, each player will be able to bring 4 characters in a clan. There will be Clan rewards, it will be easier for you to find a group to go on raids too. Also, we can’t inherit the skins from The Division 1 to The Division 2.

No stealth play is available in The Division 2, but you can sneak and get close to other players or AI enemies quietly if you are careful enough. Aside from Hyenas, True Sons and Outcasts, there might be some other factions as well but James Norris says he can’t tell us now. Maybe we will get some surprising announcements soon?

Lastly, James Horris tells us that they are still on the universe of the Division, so we can assume that The Division 2 will not be the last title in the series. The Division 2 will have its worldwide launch for PS4, Xbox One and PC on March 15, don’t miss out the game if you are interested! You can visit the official site for more details.