The Division developer interview: Ubisoft reveal why the ‘seamless’ new Tom Clancy game is finally ready for release

The long-awaited third-person shooter meets open-world MMORPG is almost finished after years of delays
Ambitious: Ubisoft's new Tom Clancy game The Division is a genre-busting new shooter
Ubisoft
Talal Musa15 January 2016

It may have been plagued by delays, but the end is finally in sight for The Division, Ubisoft's ambitious third-person shooter, RPG hybrid.

But why the wait? As its Creative Director, Magnus Jansen, explains, recreating war-torn New York proved harder than expected.

“The Division is an incredibly large and complex game with an enormously large attention to detail,”' Jansen told Standard.co.uk. “It’s taken a little more time to get it to exactly where we wanted it to be.”

In The Division, players team up to restore order to the Big Apple's Dark Zone - an area riddled with a virus and overrun by dangerous factions.

One of the biggest challenges was trying to recreate the city's iconic locations as if they were militarised.

“We did a one-to-one approach to recreating the city,” explains Jansen. “We took famous iconic locations and made sure their function was clearly understood.

“For example, if you take a sports arena and consider how this location would have been used post-pandemic, it might become a field hospital. We also asked how this space would be transformed if an enemy faction took over.”

But a gritty, realistic world would mean nothing if it wasn't populated by believable enemies.

“It’s been a challenge to create an AI that is dynamic enough to work in a completely open-world scenario, and one that dynamically adapts for up to four players,” says Jansen. “One of the cool parts of working on the AI and the enemy factions was to determine how the experience was going to be different – for example, a more organised faction will react very differently to rioters, who are pure chaos.”

The concept of a cooperatively playable open-world that allowed a seamless transition to PVP may have been a pipe dream for last-generation console owners, but is finally possible on current gen.

Best PS4 and Xbox One games 2015 - in pictures

1/13

“A game with this level of visual fidelity has only been achievable with this generation,” says Jansen. “Hooking up with strangers without any loading or going into the Dark Zone with no loading menus - it’s all seamless.”

It's clear, then, that The Division is inspired by elements closely associated with MMOs. But building on this model would be futile if severs aren't up to scratch. Thankfully, Ubisoft has kept that in mind.

“The many online RPGs that rose to popularity in the previous decade showed us just how much we could create innovative online experiences by investing heavily in new server technology,” explains Jansen. “In The Division, this is what allows us to have a completely seamless and integrated MP experience.”

Time waits for no game – what’s mind-blowing at one E3 becomes standard fare the next. But with the concept of The Division still seeming fresh, it could be worth the wait...

The Division arrives on Xbox One, PS4, and PC on March 8

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in