Fresh footage of The Division was shown at the Microsoft E3 press conference at E3 2014 today. A squad of four players navigated the snowy streets of dilapidated New York, battling what appeared to be NPC enemies on the way to a huge safehouse. Flamethrowers and strobe grenades were involved.
There was more strangely terse patter from the voice actors filling in for ordinary players over voice comms. One made reference to having to "change up our skills" before a fight, implying an on-the-fly perk system of some kind. The phrase "pull aggro" was also dropped, reinforcing the sense of an MMO-esque world. It'll be interesting to discover the precise scale of The Division's zones. It's hard to imagine a DayZ level of scale with that level of environmental detail.
The reference to a safehouse that belonged to one of the characters was also interesting. It sounded like an instanced base location that could be upgraded by players.
It's another good showing for the new Snowdrop engine. The streets were cluttered with detritus, characters gently bumped car doors shut as they threw themselves into cover. We'll probably see more at the Ubisoft conference. Meanwhile, here's that footage.
