Ubisoft has excited The Division 2 community by revealing the coming of the Survivors mode, one of the most significant features that drew people’s attention and the dynamic weather effects. The developers talked on thestream that weather effects have become a game element instead of just a kind of graphics. Just imagine, you start a mission in the bright sun of winter, and suddenly a blizzard appears, completely altering the NPC detection ranges. You have to rewrite your plan, improvise your strategy, and even get warm clothes before you freeze to death out there. That is the replayability that they envisage and honestly, it sounds pretty cool.
The developers stated in the video that the extreme blizzards were the main weather effects for Survivors mode, but they still wanted to portray various weather conditions. Hence, already fabulous cold days would be changing dynamically into storms affecting temperature and keeping players constantly seeking new strategies. A user with the nickname PlumConch836 made a prediction about this period and even tweeted, “dynamic weather is the future for all games, been saying since Div 1.” In addition, they shared a humorous POV of themselves looting during a snowstorm which goes well with the narrative of the struggle.
Despite that, discussions around every aspect of Division bring about hype and concerns in the comments section. There are players who, like AstroPhyzix, have made claims of reinstalling the game, saying “time to install the game again” even though he expresses a worry that the game’s target audience may have already shifted towards ARC Raiders. Then we have JvMPER who urges Survival mode to be resurrected in New York, expressing, “the original Survival belongs to New York,” which is rather a valid argument since that was the very place this mode was first featured in the initial Division game.
A very thought-provoking suggestion came from GrumpierZman about the concept of persistent survival gameplay, meaning you would be logging in every day with nothing and gradually building up your supplies. For example, on day one you will be on a quest for warm clothes; the next day you will be looking for food and medicines; such long-term survival gameplay would require quite a lot of patience, but it could become extremely appealing if they ever implement it.
In contrast, some players are… quite skeptical, to say the least. FrankFlowerz has already forecasted, “That’s Gonna B Infested Wit Bugs,” which, taking into consideration Ubisoft’s past, is indeed a fear not-to-be-ignored. And then, the issue of layoffs at Massive Entertainment arose, which several commenters referred to, when Diego Braz expressed his anxiety that the studio might now change its future development plans for The Division 2.
Technical difficulties were another issue raised, with YodaDil2 saying that he is “fire lotd of deltas on PSN” (gotta love those autocorrects) and Khaenolis asking about a bug in helmet customization that disables gas masks from being properly equipped on the character. It seems like there is always something going on with live service games, right?
What is really game-changing here are the weather effects. Monkenstien said that they once derived great joy from merely sitting still and listening to the thunder come in through their headsets, and they are hoping the developers will be able to pull off that same immersive feeling when storms strike and howl during the Survivors mode. What if they can manage to create that atmosphere with such a high degree of detail while ensuring that the weather is also an integral part of gameplay? Then we might be witnessing a revolution across all looter-shooter genres.
It is quite funny how many players are quick to ask about everything except for the weather effects. Losblancos1994 wanted to know why there hadn’t been a PS5 update, RedBloodedDad asked about Apple Watch faces, and bottygerjoe just plainly put, “When the release date?”. This is typical gamer behavior—they will demand ten other things as soon as you show them one cool thing.
There is this bizarre dispute in the comments about the timing of the announcement. The majority of the players resorted to speaking about ARC Raiders, with Ramzy suggesting that Ubisoft should “physically contact Embark and seek their assistance” to save The Division universe. It seems that everyone is aware of how competitive the extraction shooter market is becoming and that The Division has to work hard to be in the game.
The Portuguese commentary, translated by Grok, was very short but informative at the same time because it correctly and thoroughly recapped what the developers had said durante the stream—weather changes would reduce the range at which the NPCs could detect players and require changing in the tactics thus, making the mode more replayable. And if they pull it off well, they would be able to make the Survivors mode feel fresh again after all these years.
Now, where do we stand with The Division 2? One side the dynamic weather system appears to be a major breakthrough that can open up the gameplay significantly. On the other hand, there is no doubt that some community people are still skeptical about Ubisoft’s ability to deliver a polished roller from behind such a great idea and recent studio upheaval. But if they indeed make the weather an aspect that impacts gameplay rather than just a graphical enhancement? That will possibly be the trick for the Survivors mode to stand out in an ever-increasingly crowded genre. The future is unknown, but for now? The forecast looks like… provocative.
