Ubisoft’s executive producer, Julian Gerighty, has hinted that The Division 3 is already in the making and it will, hopefully, make a big splash among the gamers just like the first one did. He mentioned it in an interview a little while ago and suddenly the gaming world was rife with guesses regarding the future of the franchise. Even years after its launch, the community of the Division series remains loyal.
So, Julian Gerighty, the top executive producer of Ubisoft for the Division franchise, has given us the real scoop. He has said that The Division 3 is in the first phases of development, but according to him, it is “shaping up to be a monster.” This is not the usual PR rhetoric; he has actually declared that they are putting in an “extremely hard” effort to make things as big as “the impact the first divisional installment already had.” That’s a statement.And it blew up on the internet like a bomb in the Dark Zone, because let’s face it, the first installment was a phenomenon. The snowy and desperate post-pandemic New York? It was a feeling that just… stayed with people. So the thought of the creators catching that same level of impact has everyone talking, and the reactions are quite diverse, which is actually the most Division thing ever.
To start with, the hype squad. There are users like Gothicpolar who envision the best possible outcome and are saying that at least “it sounds amazing”, while only hoping this is “not just talk”. Travis Belleau is even talking about buying boys’ copies. And then, the second group, the pure nostalgia crew. Guzioo is literally begging the creators to: “Please give me another division on a snow map..” The whole winter vibe from the first game is now literally a legend, a core memory for a lot of gamers who conquered those streets. It’s a request that pops up every time the series is mentioned, even though it’s not always so directly stated.
However, on the contrary, it would have been a different story because for every individual who has had a good experience with the first game there is one who thinks the opposite and is not afraid to say so. One such user is yemmy96 who boldly states that he loved the first game but the sequel was totally different in terms of impact, he even goes to the extent of revealing how much he invested in the first game versus how boring he found the second one. Ouch! That was a tough one. Wadedyer4 backs the claim by telling he was such a fan of the first game that it was the only game he played the entire year, but he confesses that “Division 2 didn’t hit me the same.” Dado, another first game fan, also offers a harsh critique of the second game, which he dubs “delusione” (the Italian term for great disappointment) that went “beyond mortal boredom.”
Moreover, there are strong differences in opinions. What specifically is the cause of this diversity in players’ opinions? Most gamers point to the Dark Zone of the first game as the main reason for its superiority. That exhilarating, unpredictable PvPvE warfare was really something. Guzioo responds to one of the comments saying it was “dangerous” and that the game had awesome PvE too, but he is after “the mix of both worlds again.” A good number of gamers seem to think that the shift from the first to the second Division or just the overall feel of Washington D.C. never rekindled the spark. The vibe was just…wrong.
Conversely, a new group of doubters has emerged. LegateCorvus simply asks: “Was Division 1 really an impact?” Which is, in a way, a reasonable question. Meanwhile, pokrzywnik, still keeping their skeptical attitude, bluntly declares: “Cheap words. No hype until I see the game.” This is probably the best reaction one can have, at least for the time being. After the cancellation of the Heartland project (which bottygerjoe and ScubaSteve1219 are reminiscing about the potential loss) and the lukewarm reception of the second game, a bit of caution is quite understandable.
But the thrilling thing that bottygerjoe pointed out is that there is still a massive audience. He shows a Steam chart depicting The Division 2 having the same number of players as Starfield at the same time. It looks like people are still very much into the games. So when Reply_Addict starts questioning if there is even an audience, the statistics are screaming the opposite—heck yes there is! The community is very much alive; it’s just that they’re…waiting, hoping, and perhaps even praying for a revival.
What remains now is to distill the meaning for The Division 3? The answer is that Ubisoft Massive has a correspondingly large task ahead, and many are watching to see if it will be released on PlayStation and Xbox consoles. The gaming community is also discussing the latest updates, such as Overwatch 2’s new Doomfist Mythic skin.
