The Division 2 Warlords of New York – an expensive return to New York
The agents are returning to New York. It's a long way from Washington, but it's better late than never. Are Warlords of New York going to be the expansion we've been waiting for since the first Division was released?
- the first paid extension to The Division 2;
- new district – Lower Manhattan;
- 5 main missions;
- 8 side missions;
- 8 checkpoints;
- no new Dark Zone;
- challenging boss fights;
- "alive" game world with random situations;
- level cap increased to 40;
- new weapons and cosmetic items.
I’m in the New York state of mind.
That's probably how most fans of The Division feel while playing the sequel, which could be inferred from a really large number of comments on the Internet. Summertime Washington didn't come close to snow-covered New York in terms of atmosphere, and appeal of buildings and locations. The developers from Massive Entertainment must have noticed that – Warlords of New York takes us back to where it all began – the Big Apple!
In New York, we will meet old friends again – Fay Lau, Paul Rhodes, and others. We will encounter an "updated" (in a sense) version of the Cleaners and Rikers while tracking down another friend, Aaron Keener. Looking at these returns, it seems the authors are following the same path as Bungie took with Destiny 2. There, too, after the initial poor reception of the sequel, the subsequent expansions brought locations, characters, or weapons from the original, with the idea of rekindling the passion for the game.
Unfortunately, just like Destiny 2, Warlords of New York will be the first paid expansion, although over the past year we have become accustomed to the fact that new missions and locations for The Division 2 were available in free updates. So, is it worth paying half the price of the game to return to shooting on the streets of post-apo New York?
Wall Street Agents
I can answer this question, of course, only in the review of the entire add-on. So far, I could only check the overall atmosphere and some of the changes made in the game, during a brief presentation at Massive Entertainment's headquarters in Malmo. And I have to say it's very familiar and simple... Familiar, because it's all the same as in the core game. The NY magic I remembered from The Division wasn't there, at least not for me.
A big factor here is probably the season – we return to NY after 8 months; it's already summer. No more misty mornings and snow, just lush greenery in parks and torrential rains. The buildings are taller, there are the ubiquitous fire escapes and the silver tower of the One World Trade Center dominating the skyline at all angles, but the atmosphere is exactly the same as in Washington, DC.

A prophetic vision, or clever easter egg?
In The Division 2, you can get to an interesting place in Washington. It's a museum that hosted an exhibition called "NYC After Dark – a return to the Big Apple – January." In addition, you can see a map of the Lower Manhattan on part of the posters advertising the exhibition!
Admittedly, a visit to Coney Island at the beginning of February, and landing in Lower Manhattan on the first days of March seems to close for a coincidence. So was the Warlords of New York already announced as the core game was launched? According to one of the directors of the game, Yannick Bancaria, it is a coincidence!
"I don't think this was a hint... maybe it's more of an invention of one of the graphic designers? We always wanted to go back to New York, meet those characters again, study the threat from Aaron Keener, and tie all the loose ends. It's always been our dream to return to New York in the story, but I don't think it was a deliberate action."
Well... if this really was pure chance, you have to admit that Massive Entertainment has some prophetic designers. Guess it's a good idea to watch their works closely!
I was a bit surprised when I didn't find any references to the original game during exploration. I hoped for some of the same billboards, posters, advertising, but there was nothing. New York in The Division 2 seemed a city from a completely different dimension than in the first game. The dichotomy of human experience is truly astonishing. We complain so much about the laziness of the devs when they reuse some of the same assets; yet here we are, complaining about the exact opposite – but it's true. Or maybe I just haven't looked close enough.
The choice of the new location is an advantage, though. The southern part of the island, Lower Manhattan, allows you to visit areas such as Battery Park, with a view of the Statue of Liberty, Two Bridges with an entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge; Chinatown, or the financial district with the famous Wall Street. We won't find a new Dark Zone for PvP battles anywhere. Lower Manhattan will be called the Light Zone, exclusively with AI-controlled opponents, and the plot excuse for that is the hurricane that passed over the city and damaged the walls, limiting access to the Zones. The entire area is done the same way as Washington – an exact, 1:1 scale with geolocation.
Virus – the final stand
In addition the locations, the single biggest advantage of the paid expansion to The Division 2 is a much more developed storyline than in previous updates. In five main missions and eight side quests, we will focus on tracking down a well-known, first-wave rebel agent, Aaron Keener, who acquired an even more dangerous strain of the virus. Keener will be protected by the title Warlords of New York – four loyal lieutenants, agents, and mini-bosses – as the creators say "Upgraded, and improved" factions of Cleaners and Rikers. Also returning are the characters we worked with to build a base in The Division's post office building, namely Faye Lau, Roy Benitez, Paul Rhodes, and others.
It's hard to say how interesting the storyline – or perhaps even the culmination of everything that started in the first game – will be. We didn't see any cut-scenes; there were only the standard audiologs with conversations of well-known characters. Immediately, however, it is evident that Warlords of New York was developed before Ubisoft announced the big change of direction of their video game design strategy, because the framework of the script is a perfect calque of all the games coming from the French studio in recent years. Areas of the city controlled by mini-bosses to be defeated before we can tackle the main villain – that's the premise of at least four games: The Division, w Far Cry 5, Ghost Recon: Wildlands and Assasssin’s Creed: Origins. And while it's a perfectly reasonable idea for a video game, it's no doubt been slightly abused.
A map of New York is just begging for a Ghost Recon: Breakpoint kind of solution, i.e. exploration based exclusively on information obtained from NPCs, rather than user interface leading you by the hand. It worked fine in The Sinking City, where the only clue we got was the address, and I'd love if Warlords of New York did exactly that, especially since each boss must first be tracked down by conducting a small investigation. Unfortunately, from the presentation, it seems we'll simply follow breadcrumb icons. I hope this element will change in the final version. The game would benefit greatly from this.
How big is the map compared to those of The Division?
It's hard to compare, because the map we created for The Division 2 is a 1:1 fragment of New York City. This was not the case in the first game. The map was close to the 1:1 scale, but not quite. So it's hard to compare them because of this discrepancy of scale, and to be honest, I don't know the exact numbers. We have four main zones on the map, which, of course, is not as many as in the first part, where there were probably 12, but these zones are really very large. If you run through them for a bit, you will see that they are quite huge areas of land. There are a lot of things to explore; checkpoints, activities. It's dense, but there's a lot to see and to do.
Yannick Bancherea, game director
"Now you see me; now you don't"
The gameplay will be enriched with boss fights. And the bosses will finally be more than bullet sponges – rather, they'll be opponents requiring a specific approach – similarly to Destiny. An approach that's easier when playing co-op. On the show, I could try the authors' ideas by completing one of the main missions. Lieutenant Theo Parnell could deploy holograms, deceptively avoiding confrontation. The bossfight required test-firing many of these projections until, by trial and error, we revealed his position. The boss usually hid quickly after exposure, so rather than exciting, the fight was simply dragging on. The whole experience seemed pretty tedious, but at least it's an idea for boss encounters, and it warrants hopes that the remaining fights will be more captivating.
In addition to the hologram, we will get a total of four new special skills. Some of the original gadgets are making a return, including the sticky bomb. The developers promise significant changes in the RPG department to make the loot a bit sexier, improve intuitiveness of the statistics, and at the same time raise their complexity to cater to more hardcore players. We'll have to wait until the release to see how that works out. In addition, it is worth noting that the map in Warlords of New York won't feature the so-called level gating, i.e. we'll be able to fight in any part of the city, regardless what level we are. There's also good news for the Dark Zone – the one in Washington. It's supposedly "going back to the roots;" the interactions between human players, who will be able to either help or hinder, with equal incentives on both sides. It sounds somewhat mysterious, but I have a hunch that there will be a lot of shooting in the back in any case.
An exciting single-player game in the world of The Division?
Taking this opportunity, I asked Yannick Banchere about the prospects of creating an exciting single-player game in the world of The Division, without all that endgame, loot, and co-op – more like The Last of Us set in apocalyptic New York. Unfortunately, we probably will have to do away with the film:
There are many interesting stories we could tell in the world of The Division. But it's not what our team is interested in, not what it was created for. We love figuring out the endgames, raids, and RPG mechanics – this is our real passion. At some point, it might be possible to change something, create something different, maybe some kind of a spin-off, everything is possible, but then you would have to assemble a different team. We're focused on the multiplayer and co-op, and that's not going to change soon.
Yannick Bancherea, game director
Saving the world full-time
The third pillar of Warlords of New York, after the new map and changes in the RPG mechanics, is, of course, the endgame, and here, as you might expect, the "gamevice" (or game-as-a-service – just coined it) is on a serious offence. Every three months, a new seasons will be released, with an exact calendar schedule of individual activities supported by the storyline. Various bonuses will appear in the missions, each player will rise their seasonal rank, get rewards, new equipment, loot, cosmetic items – all neatly packed into Battle Passes. It sounds familiar, and it seems that we are already used to this marketing standard. If someone has actively been involved in The Division 2, they should have no reason to complain in the future. Aah, one more thing! The endgame icing on the cake will be the new raid – the Foundry – and you won't need to go up to the maximum character level to participate. The developers have prepared two versions of difficulty: for levels 30 and 40.
Better late than never?
During heyday of the first part of The Division, an add-on like Warlords of New York would be something the community would absolutely go crazy for. Back then, the only thing anyone could care about was getting a bigger map and more story-based missions. The otherwise embarrassing content of that season pass was only saved by the atmospheric Survival mode. In The Division 2, there won't be a new version of the survival, but there will be more New York, just in a state of mind. What the first part should have offered, we will now get in the expansion to the sequel.
That's not exactly the order in which things should have happened, but... Better late than never. I'm very curious to see what the end of the story is, and how will the return to NYC feel. But this task is easier. The biggest test for Warlords of New York will be the endgame. The one in Washington was completely unappealing for me, even though I tried all the add-ons and new locations. Ultimately, I'm looking forward to my return to New York.
DISCLAIMER
The expenses related to the author's trip for the game's presentation were covered by Ubisoft – we appreciate it!