Ubisoft has actually announced a completely new event, a community one for the brutal new The Division series, Survive Fest. The event reflects player feedback and is for the survival-loving community. Survival gameplay, direct feedback sessions between players and the development team, and a live stream with The Division 2: Survivors creative director Magnus Jansén are all part of the event. Also, special rewards will be given to every player logged in during the event and more gifts for the best players. Full details will be released next week.
So, what exactly is Survive Fest? Ubisoft has definitely started to listen to the hardcore survival players who have been begging for more of that mode content for a long time. They have really gone far in making an entire festival around Survival gameplay, which has always been one of The Division’s most powerful and most beloved aspects. And not only that but the director has also been invited to participate in a live streaming session, which is quite awesome actually.
There have been mixed reactions from the community – part of it has been the communication of excitement and the other part very specific askings. The players are really thrilled about it – one of the users, Shifty, has even said “I’ll be there!” Another, TurkeyHunter, called it “already a W for the whole community.” Still, there have been very practical questions that have been asked all over the place at the same time. For example, Jon Varner asked, “When is it?” and Philip Gaitan designated it a “How do we get an invite”-question, which are indeed valid questions.
What is interesting, however, is that the community is actually stating what it wants from the Division case beyond just this event by all these questions. The demand is huge for next-gen upgrades, especially for The Division 1. I mean, there are countless people requesting 60 FPS on the PS5 specifically. User _CaRN literally said “Div 1 is unplayable on PS5” and Patrick shouted “Bring the update for 60FPS to PlayStation for The Division 1 !!!!!!!!!! The 30FPS needs to goooo.” Apparently, Xbox players have already got 60 FPS through the FPS Boost? That’s what MrVagueness and bxsoles were talking about anyway.
Then there’s the issue of cross-progression that keeps coming up. P.J, one of the users said “We need cross progression. Know it will never happen but we can dream ha.” Which, yeah, that would be pretty cool but probably won’t be happening anytime soon.
What would really make it evident is how many people would be talking about going back to The Division 1 with the new content. AU_NeXus691 wrote, “Time to dust off Div 1 again” and Ronnie Rizzo said, “Never left NYC. Still surviving.” It is quite obvious that there is still a loyal playerbase for the original game, which is quite understandable because the Survival mode in Div 1 was just… chef’s kiss perfect.
Some players are already offering their opinions on the content-wise what would be best. Crisco Kid asked, “Will compound bows finally be added?” while Txddy suggested, “A new dark zone would be epic. Raise the drop rate for exotics and put legendary troops in it.” And then there is a random question about Heartland from rowbuilder – “why did you cancel heartland” – which, oof, that’s a whole other topic to discuss.
The community is fantastic – they are extremely excited but at the same time, very specific about their expectations. Like, they have been playing these games for years and they know exactly which aspects need to be improved. GrumpierZman stated “As a true survival player (multiple games) I’m all about the survival experience,” which in fact describes the hardcore people very well.
What’s great about Survive Fest is that it looks as though Ubisoft is already prepared to communicate with the hardcore survival community directly. The live stream of the creative director allows players to ask their questions and provide their feedback immediately. The “extra rewards for a few stand-out players” indicates that they might be on the lookout for the most dedicated survival experts to showcase or something like that.
There is also the international dimension – user EROK PLAYS asked “Für Td1 oder Td2 ?” which translates to “For TD1 or TD2?” in German, thereby highlighting the event’s global reach. Lector was wondering about a potential Nintendo Switch 2 version which, honestly would be crazy but most likely not happening.
The timing is really intriguing too – with Theo Crabalar asking “Does this start Dec 1st?” although we do not have confirmation on dates at this point in time. Ubisoft mentioned “more info next week,” so we will probably get the whole schedule then.
It is clear that the Division community is very enthusiastic even years after the release of both titles.
