The recent announcement of a new game based on Avatar at Ubisoft Massive led to a gut-level worry for the future of the studio's current game, The Division. Ubisoft quickly moved to reassure players that the new project will have no impact on it, however, and today it moved to solidify its commitment to The Division's future by unveiling plans for "Year Two," which will see the release of two new expansions, both of which will be free.
The first expansion, which is set to arrive this summer, will be built around an "event system that drives players to activities that feature modifiers, leaderboards, and unique vanity items that will only be available through these activities."
More importantly, for long-suffering players with over-filled stashes, it will also finally add loadouts, giving players the ability to quickly change between their favorite gear and weapon combos. And there will be a new system to mark a player's "feats," which creative director Julian Gerighty said will "reward players for different activities—long-term activities, short-term activities, medium-term activities. Basically, our Division achievements, if you will."
The second expansion is too far away to get into at this point, but Gerighty said that while it will be "more content-focused," it also won't necessarily include any new story missions. "We can't really deliver story missions that will fit into the RPG aspects of the game in a simple way," he explained. "So we're not going to be doing the classic main mission type of thing, but narrative content is something that we are definitely looking at."
Ubisoft also announced that it will mark the first anniversary of The Division by giving 200 premium credits, and a "premium celebration emote," to all players who log in between March 9-16. There will also be a 2X multiplier on high value targets from March 9-11, and on March 11, a 2X multiplier on field proficiency caches.
It's obviously disappointing that the Year Two DLCs won't have any new big, story-based content, and despite Ubisoft's reassurances it's an absence that makes me wonder if that particular Tom Clancy tale has now been fully told. But free is free, and the addition of loadouts is long overdue. It's not clear whether the system will apply only to gear pieces and weapons, or if it will automatically be used to swap weapon and gear mods around as well, but hopefully it's the latter. I've emailed Ubisoft for clarification and we'll update when we know more.
Update: Ubisoft has confirmed that "weapon, gear and mod changes are all saved" in loadouts.
