The Division First (Not Good) Impressions From EGX!

On the first day of EGX there was one game that I set out to play above all others on the floor, The Division. What followed that thought, however was a 3 1/2 hour queue. So from 11 30 til about 15 00 myself and a friend waited in line, with nothing but some Assassins Creed gameplay to watch in the meantime, all the while imagining what this game was going to entail, trying to catch a glimpse of it so we were prepared to step in, put the headset on and have some fun.

I’ll preface by saying the only thing we played was the dark zone PvP style game-type. The concept of this mode was strong enough, 3v3v3, everyone trying to secure evac with a package they had just looted and different classes for different roles. The classes seemed cool. There was a demolition style guy with a shotgun and an LMG who threw down a mini-turret for covering fire, of which I played. The other two classes were a traditional healer and a dps, although we have been told that any combination is fine and if you had 3 healer types in the game, for instance, it’s not the death sentence it can be in other RPG style games. Unfortunately I only got to play the turret guy and even the “commander” we had guiding our team through the mission said I drew the short straw with that class.

So that’s my first issue, whether it was just how the game played or just my class, the gunplay felt sluggish and the guns at my disposal were pretty terrible in the PvP segment of the game. It wasn’t fun to be shot at from 20 feet away, knowing full well that he was too far away for me to do anything, short of getting behind cover and hoping he closed the distance or lazily throwing my turret down and hope it pointed at him. I personally felt at a disadvantage and honestly believe that was one of the reasons we lost.

Now onto another, more worrying, problem I had with the game. My framerate was incredibly inconsistent, running at sub-30 frames per second a lot of the time. I’m willing to give Ubisoft a pass for this if they can confirm that they were indeed early builds that weren’t fully polished. I’m also sceptical as when I glanced over to my left and watched my friends monitor it appeared to be running at a very stable 60 frames per second. This is one of the biggest issues and could be one of the biggest turn offs for me if it is a slower game. 30 frames per second for a game with PvP like this simply will not do. It makes the game feel clunky and adding to that the fact that the gunplay didn’t feel great, it could spell an early shower for this hugely hyped game.

I left the booth feeling pretty empty actually. I’m not sure whether it was because I’d just waited 3+ hours in line to play, or whether the game just isn’t everything I’ve been imagining and there are going to be problems figuring out the stability of the visuals. Either way, I went into EGX with an open mind about this game, verging towards outright buying it when it came out, to being really edgy about listening to the news coverage and possibly re-evaluating my decision. We know Ubisoft are capable of great things, I just hope they can show me why I should be excited about what they have in store for us when the game launches.

Have you guys been eagerly awaiting the launch of the Division? Or are you waiting to see news and reviews before making your purchasing decisions? We love to hear your thoughts down in the comments below.