Massive Entertainment has dropped some shocking news for the Division 2 players. Like, what just hit the airwaves? A new chapter in the survival extraction experience is said to be in the development phase-the Division 2: Survivor, with Magnus Jansén at the helm of it. Considering it is still very much in early development, it is cool to talk about how players will go through this journey in The Division 2. But that…what does that even mean?
Remember, the original Division had this serious survival mode where you scavenged for resources with actual enemies lining up in front of you to take you out and trying to just somehow stay alive against this snowy brutality in New York. Simply put, probably one of the best moments of the first game ever, and the player base has been begging for something like this to be brought in Division 2 for years since. Marcos Elisio basically responded to the announcement with “I have been asking this for so long!”. So, yes-again-one more thing that is prevalent with hype.
The thing now-the announcement is still vague. We do know it’s an extraction experience, meaning we instantaneously think about games like Escape from Tarkov or Call of Duty’s DMZ mode. Will this be PVP? PVE? Both? The community is already divided! There’s a player going by the moniker Pp head reef asking if this is basically the “darkzone but a more full version of it?” which… maybe? Then you’ve also got others begging for a purely offline PVE mode, such as IdrTheMvp who commented: “Don’t hate me yall but I want an offline PVE mode along side the multiplayer.”
Then there’s the grassroots trend. SiXLETiX said, “I would love to see a graphical enhancement for 4090/5090, PS5 Pro and Series X,” which, like, totally will do. Division 2 still looks okay, thanks to me telling you, just that it’s been around for some time now. Rogerio Menecucci posted twice that Division 2 really needs a legit next-gen upgrade with proper movements, better lighting, and 120 FPS support. That too, Ubisoft.
But not everyone loves it. Some people are just really salty as it seems to come at the expense of others projects. StatsJoe commented, “Lmao cancelled Heartland just to give us this smh and this thing is a few years out,” with the “ouch” being added. And then there’s the whole Division 3 question. Dumitru Bajereanu just straight up asked, “Where is División 3?,” which is a very valid question.
Commentary has always been messy. People are trying to argue on whether this should be paid DLC or free, whether or not it should be tied into the base game, standalone, well, you know; the PvP vs PVE classic. Somebody named Zero_sum13 needed to remind everyone that survival in the first game was actually a DLC expansion, so maybe expecting this to be free is a little bit optimistic. Then again of course, DaWeaveGaming kinda wants it to be completely separate from Division 2 which… doesn’t really make any business sense.
And then there’s that weird toxicity that keeps popping up in gaming communities. 0255_AM started throwing out some weird comments about watching The View and calling fellow gamers “fatty,” which is just… why. Why? Thomas Robinson tried to reprimand, but it just blew up further. Gaming communities, man, they’re something else.
But amidst the chaos, the majority of players seem to be thrilled at the prospect. Miles Dupree captured it with: “We’re so gd back boys.” That’s the vibe. The survival mode in Division 1 was legendary, and if they somehow catch that magic again and bring it into the Division 2 world? With modern extraction game mechanics? That is going to be sick.
The million-dollar question that seems to weigh on everyone’s neural approaches is the timing. The tweet stated development is still in its early phase; MsArtemis01 guessed, “2027 I guess,” which… hopefully, it is not. Hopefully not. But looking at game development these days, it is about time. That would be fine if they nail it. Division 2 definitely had its ups and downs. Still, the core gameplay is very solid. A real survival extraction mode would draw a lot more of that player traffic back again that has since turned their noses up towards other games.
One juicy tidbit – Magnus Jansén is directing it. He’s been around at Massive for a good while and was involved in the first Division, so he kind of knows what worked in the original survival mode. So, at the very least, that is some great news. This isn’t just some side mode being slapped together by whoever. This is in the hands of a guy who knows the franchise inside and out.
So yeah, very much so, The Division 2: Survivors is happening. It is early; we know very little, but this still has some potential behind it. Whether this can ever live up to the original survival remains to be seen, but then at least the entire community would be willing to jump right back into that unforgiving scavenge-for-resources gameplay so lovingly remembered from the survival mode in the first game. Here’s hoping they nail it.
