Division 2 Warlords Of New York Worth

A deserted downtown Manhattan street following a viral outbreak that ravaged the city the preceding winter

The Division 2's Warlords of New York: Is it worth going back to chase Aaron Keener?

Agents render to Manhattan, but the more than things modify ...

By Mar 6, 2020, 4:33pm EST

Paradigm: Massive Entertainment/Ubisoft

Tom Clancy's The Division 2 got its outset premium expansion, Warlords of New York, earlier this week. Players go back to the Big Apple, scene of 2016's original The Sectionalization, to chase down rogue agent Aaron Keener, going through four of his lieutenants kickoff. Polygon's Charlie Hall and I are several hours into information technology, each, and we both agree that Warlords feels very familiar for those with a lot of fourth dimension sunk into the game.

I'm inclined to view that as a positive reminder; Charlie is a chip more restless, however. Neither of us are actually sure that Keener will actually get got, as this is the blazon of franchise that needs an uber-malevolence driving the bigger movie, e'er throwing some new crunch for the heroes to handle.

Then will a hunt that has now spanned four years and ii games ever reach a conclusion? Charlie and I pondered this and other questions in hashing out our initial reactions to Warlords of New York.

Owen: I consider myself a Segmentation 2 backslider — not because I dislike the game, but mostly considering I got myself to World Tier 2 effectually the fourth dimension I was getting super-involved in other long-playing video games. I notice Warlords of New York is a nice refresher and reintroduction to the reasons I was willing to sink 150-plus hours into The Division 2 terminal jump and summer (plus its predecessor the wintertime earlier).

Problem is, going dorsum into The Division two later on so long away, I'k kind of craving what I left behind in D.C., and at that place's no returning to Washington until you stop the entrada up in the Big Apple tree. Everyone who owns the Warlords expansion gets to boost their character, or even create a new one and heave them, to World Tier five, bypassing all of the advanced endgame grind that otherwise gates the trip north. I chose to boost the only grapheme I've fought with, yet now I'm kind of jonesing for the Nighttime Zone and some other things I skipped over or left backside in D.C. Was that a dumb decision? What did you do, Charlie?

Charlie: Honestly, I'm non entirely sure that we didn't all brand a mistake here, Owen. I talked to Faye Lau last night. Roy Benitez was in that location as well. They both look so tired. Each of them but sorta wandered into the frame to pinch out a few expletives before the camera moved on. In that location'southward another virus, I think, and this one's existent bad now, and nosotros gotta fix it so nosotros can go back and work on the first one once more. I recall.

How did we fifty-fifty get hither? I logged in for the first fourth dimension in a few months to be greeted by a laundry listing of announcements and alerts. I opened packages. I cleared orangish check marks from my menus, and then ... I simply sorta wandered around the White House like John Travolta in Pulp Fiction. I actually had to Google "how to get to New York Urban center" because I thought I had missed a step.

There was a bit of preview content that came out featuring Coney Island. Turns out you don't demand to become in that location at all. Y'all just need to finish the principal game, advance to World Tier 5, and talk to a pilot sitting like William T. Riker backward on a chair, and off you become. I'g still terribly confused as to why I can't go back to D.C., but here we are. We're here now.

Are y'all having a dainty time now, Owen, with all the dogs?

promotional image showing the four menacing-looking bad guys of Tom Clancy's The Division 2: Warlords of New York — The titular Warlords of New York, from left: James Dragov, Theo Parnell, Aaron Keener, Vivian Conley, and Javier Kajika.

Owen: Well, I went through the same "OK, where I did I leave off here" onboarding, or reboarding, only I'm a little more sanguine almost Warlords of New York and how it reconnects me to the things I've enjoyed most about this franchise. I'yard continually awed by how detailed the world and the interior levels are, even if procedurally it'southward more of the same stuff: Go check this area out, kill all these people, accept on the level dominate, call in aid if necessary, and sort out your boodle.

More than concretely, Warlords of New York hits a difficulty sweetness spot that the base game took a few months to reach. The commencement two big fights I've gone through have felt solo-able — but just barely. In that location were even early on side missions in launch-day Division ii (thinking virtually the MLK Library) that were enormously difficult to solo, and annihilation with a heavy unit absolutely demanded cooperative assist. Something happened to the game in the late leap of 2019, though. Heavies' weak points got a lot easier to hitting, and even the Bank Headquarters mission was at present manageable past myself. The game simply felt too like shooting fish in a barrel, and that's effectually the time I put it downwardly.

Warlords of New York probably owes its appealing alloy of claiming and feasibility to being designed with all of the tweaking and rebalancing that has been done in The Sectionalization 2'south updates over the past year. This may be something that pops out to me considering I insist on solo play so much. Has partying up with randos helped the expansion's entreatment for you, or is that, too, more of the same?

Charlie: Since the launch of The Partition 2, I've been absolutely floored at its technical aspects. When the original game launched, yous couldn't get into a party for a story mission if you tried, and even the daily missions themselves stopped working correctly for a time. Multiplayer in The Sectionalisation ii has worked well-nigh perfectly since launch, and the same holds true in Warlords of New York.

I took on the get-go miniboss that I encountered with the help of a random player. That'due south how I made information technology through the primary campaign and all the way up to Globe Tier 5, and I'm happy to say that information technology is merely as functional now as it was then.

I'm just non vibing with the narrative elements, Owen. Or at to the lowest degree, not the main narrative element, which is "go murder Aaron Keener, the big-bad y'all should have murdered in the first game."

I'm a solo role player besides, and at start blush I was very much excited at the new "fog of state of war" feature. Once I set down in Manhattan, the game removed near all of ISAC'south pathfinding, making me feel solitary and vulnerable for the commencement fourth dimension in a long while. But information technology feels similar the map fills out very apace, and the narrative content itself has been pretty sparse. It's besides a scrap effortless. I'm stumbling over audio logs that seem to exist dropped at my feet, but they only don't amount to all that much. The most interesting plot thread and so far has been the backstory for Theo Parnell, the son of a one-time senator and now one of Keener'due south right-hand men. Parnell gets written off in the flavour text as a conspiracy theorist almost immediately ... but he sounds similar he'south definitely got a bespeak? And an interesting story to tell?

I killed him, though. And so that's over. I experience now similar I desire to get to the stop of the narrative as quickly as possible, so I can go dorsum to searching the environment and getting lost hush-hush and scaring myself with new Hunters. It all feels a flake like a wasted opportunity at closure, but we'll see how it pays off.

Who have you killed recently, Owen? And with what surplus implements of war?

Faye Lau, a wounded Division commander wearing an eyepatch, instructs a Division agent by pointing at a map of lower Manhattan — Faye Lau returns to her duties from the first *The Sectionalisation*, which is apparently to swear gratuitously while giving mission voice-overs.

Owen: I also killed Theo. In the expository dialogue throughout that mission, I thought we might go some kind of sympathetic angle on the rogue agents being forsaken. But nah, he was your bones patsy henchman for the sociopathic big-bad at the pinnacle of the pyramid. Notwithstanding, Parnell's new gadget — the holographic decoy — was kind of useful. In the follow-upward mission at One Police force Plaza, the decoy tin be used to plough the heavy's back to you. Information technology's a much meliorate option than my turret, which a heavy still stomps immediately.

Mostly I've been taking the map sequentially, equally I have in the residual of my time with this series. I think I went after Parnell first considering the other locations (a quarantined high-rise and the Brooklyn Bridge) sounded more unsafe or technical. But from what I tin can tell, there is no Nighttime Zone here (Lower Manhattan was a Dark Zone, in the story). I always fabricated trips to the Night Zone as a kind of mess-around attorney feel after clearing a bunch of items off my PvE to-exercise list. In Warlords of New York, my chaser is going right dorsum out for some drove jobs or thwarting yet another public execution. And the gear I'm getting isn't as exciting as what'due south around the corner in a Night Zone.

Structurally, I've enjoyed a neat deal of what The Partition ii has offered, so I see no problem with but delivering more of that. But I can tell that this is an expansion developed with completely new players in mind, also, such that things that would seem novel to them (or those coming back from a long layoff) might lack oomph for those who accept a longer tenure. It's a skillful reason to return to The Segmentation 2, but it'due south non a remade game, nor an "it'south never been better" feeling.

Charlie: Agreed. I showed up for the Ubisoft version of Destiny'south The Taken Male monarch — a major revision to the franchise that made it feel both polished and fresh. I'm getting a strong whiff of shine so far, only that'southward virtually information technology.