We finished the expansion of Warlords of New York and we tell you everything that this new content brings for The Division 2.
Of all the franchises of the Tom Clancy universe and that Ubisoft has practically endorsed, perhaps the one with the greatest capacity to tell us a good story is The Division. The first part left us a good looter shooter set in a New York ravaged by a virus and, barely a year ago, its sequel came. The change of location to Washington DC was a small downgrade for some users who considered NY a city with more charm, although the mechanics of the game, as we said in our Reviews, are still very solid. Warlords of New York returns to Manhattan in a nod to the purists of the original game, while exploring new locations not seen before and giving us the opportunity to see how the months that separate both deliveries of the saga have affected the scenarios .
Free content versus expansion
We must distinguish two kinds of content that we received from March 3: on the one hand there is the Title Update 8 that incorporates the Equipment 2.0 system, the new objects, the changes in the recalibration table and the modifications in the system of spells. These changes, although important and that in part define a new approach to the concept of endgame for all players – with or without expansion – we will not fully detail them here because they are free and independent of the payment of the 30 euros that it costs to upgrade to Warlords of New York. On the other hand there is the exclusivity of the contents of the expansion, which we will shelve here; However, as part of them they are planned to be unlocked during the next few weeks, we consider it more successful to wait to see what this content and its new story arcs consist of before judging with an Reviews of the use. Serve these impressions to inform everything that can be done and we have done so far so that the reader can have an informed opinion before making the disbursement.
For starters, the Warlords of New York campaign begins where the last episode left on Coney Island; We embark on the persecution of Aaron Keener, the former agent of The Division who acts as a decaffeinated villain for the occasion. To be accountable, you have to kill your lieutenants in a total of 5 main missions and, optionally, 8 secondary ones. The missions themselves have the same structure we have seen so far: get to one place, clean from enemies, proceed to another place. The fighting against the sub-bosses is also nothing special, although we have noticed that some use their new abilities more imaginatively and in some cases the mission to reach him seemed consistent with his personality. Unfortunately, there is hardly any time to inquire more because in just a couple or three hours we will have done your part of the mission and we will not hear from each of them again.
When we return to New York we have the possibility to explore new areas – but we don't have the map of the first game open, of course – and see how it has changed. There is a new base of operations to work on and 4 new neighborhoods to discover, with their hidden and collectible activities, which receive special mention because in this case they have hidden well. The technical work is still spectacular: the city devastated not only by the virus but by the inclement weather, completely reimagined iconic places and, in general, a plausible apocalyptic future totally coherent and credible. It must be said that the new locations are extraordinary both in their design and in their on-screen implementation: from the most claustrophobic corners to the battle on the beach against one of the sub-bosses they are spectacular, either day or night. Ubisoft still does not pay attention to expenses in this aspect and it shows because the game seems to us a visual delight. Even the return of old factions known as the Rikers or Cleaners have received a face lift and now have new weapons in their arsenal without renouncing their own peculiarities that made them distinguishable from each other.
Once we finish the campaign, and not before, we can return to Washington if we wish. At this point we will be level 40, the new maximum of the game, and we will have access to the new equipment sets, the new exotic objects and the new talents. Each boss that we have defeated will also give us access to a new skill that we can equip and we will have a new difficulty mode for some of the missions and configure the whole world with a higher level of challenge. An infinite progression system called “SHD level” has been added that will give us a greater amount of base statistics and in addition, every three weeks, a new narrative arc similar to the one lived in the campaign will be unlocked. How dense and how long this main post-campaign will be extended remains to be seen, but will somehow come to complement the classified missions that until now were the only resource available to users to learn more about the argument.
These seasons are one of the main additions to the future of what will be The Division 2 from now on and will join the events that already existed until now; During these seasons we will acquire season points that will unlock lot and special cosmetics. The first season is included in the expansion package and then they will cost around € 10 for each one we want to participate in, although Ubisoft has said that most of the important items will be in the “free” version of the seasons, in the style of what other titles like Fortnite and their battle pass do. We already know what the rewards are for leveling up next season but we don't know if the content will be worth it in terms of the investment of time to unlock it.
One of the things that we liked the most and that coincides with the launch of the expansion is how the lot has been simplified and, especially, the possibility of configuring a game style much more easily. It is easier to navigate between menus and check at a glance what weapons and equipment contribute to the way we want to play. Added to the possibility of extracting qualities from weapons and keeping them in a kind of closet to be able to reuse them as many times as we want … it is much more pleasant to be able to try to find our ideal piece of equipment or even search to find that exotic weapon that is It resists us.
On a playable level, The Division 2 continues to offer the same. The shooting mechanics work properly and the artificial intelligence of the enemies has been improved, although we continue to observe strange behaviors in some of them. There are many weapons to choose from, many specialties to choose from and many ways to configure our character, and most of them seem quite viable today. The new legendary difficulty for the 3 fortresses is still a bit far for our team level but we have been able to complete the rest of the missions without too many complications; It is also possible to reset the map to conquer it again, if that is our desire, or wander around every corner to find the new enemies and epic hunts that have been added in the expansion.
But adding everything we are not facing a great radical change in the experience we saw in The Division 2. They are changes in quality of life in many cases and in the rest they are added that expand a universe that already existing users of the franchise know well. In other words, Warlords of New York is clearly an expansion that is not intended to capture people who no longer play the game, but to maintain the interest of those who were already playing. This is not what Destiny 2 did relatively recently, this is a continuous expansion with a very clear interest and without bluntness. Which is not necessarily bad: the missions are still very good, the best in batch and interface are very welcome and the game in general feels better. But it is not by far a revolution for the title, although some were what they expected.
We will continue to observe the evolution that follows the content of The Division 2 and this Warlords of New York. We will see exactly how interesting the seasonal content is or if they are simply new hunts with little more than adding a couple of objects to our collection. It gives the impression that we are facing a good exponent of the looter shooter genre which, however, can still get more out of it and it remains to be seen if what we have prepared from Ubisoft will justify the investment of the € 30 that this expansion. For now we can say that we had fun revisiting Manhattan and doing the new missions and activities but we would have liked something more that, perhaps, is yet to come.
