The Division 2 Warlords of New York Review

"Back to Where it Began"

Campaign

March 9, 2020 at 11:24pm
By Jason Stettner

This is the big expansion for The Division 2, where we go back to where it all started and attempt to take on the main bad guy. That’s right; Aaron Keener, former Division Agent has apparently taken control of New York despite our work in the region previously.

This guy has setup four fortified main warlords that you’ll need to battle and eliminate. It’s honestly a very generic setup, and one that doesn’t do anything new with the formula. Within each of the four areas you’ll talk to a local NPC, then do a couple missions and kill the warlord.

Once you do that, you’ll take on some generic side missions and grind a couple levels so that you can tackle the main bad guy. It’s got a new level forty cap to it which is great for those wanting to earn that level. If you just want to work through the narrative, too bad. It’s got a level forty cap on being able to play the last mission.

On top of that, when this launched the local NPCs you had to talk to were broken. Over 75% of the expansion wasn’t playable and honestly, I’m sick of games launching in this state so I’m not forgiving that despite it being patched at this point. It’s ridiculous, that should be the easiest thing to see when it comes to polishing your DLC, that over 75% of it is unplayable.

That aside, I felt like the expansion was hitting more of the same beats as the core game. I was hoping they’d maybe lean into some detective angle since you were searching for clues, but that’s not at all a thing here. I was just hoping for something new, but what I faced were numerous issues. I guess those were new, since I didn’t face them at launch. Things weren’t working during missions, and I believe the final straw which is a minor silly thing was that I got stuck in a door.

It’s just, tiring and while that last one isn’t a big deal it’s just one more in a series of problems that plagued this addition to the game. Keeping in mind that I really enjoyed The Division 2 at launch and was hoping this expansion would be an exciting venture back into it.

I will note that the visuals were gorgeous here aside from the slower texture loading. It’s not the snowy New York you remember it as, it’s broken down and crumbling. Nature has really reclaimed this one and you get to venture to some really neat landmark areas of it. It also features some rather insane storms. There are of course side things to take part in, and some small additional missions you can tackle.

The Conclusion

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 Warlords of New York is a good selection of new content, the state of that content was pitiful upon release with many issues plaguing the experience. It’s in a better state at this point, but when I was playing it this was rough to go through.

There needs to be the most minimal of testing before a release. All I ask is that the majority of the game works, over 75% of this wasn’t accessible and there are still numerous issues here. It makes it hard to enjoy, and that’s disappointing as the expansion does provide some neat new areas.

The narrative was super generic, as was the setup. Still, it was a build upon a core game that I really liked so I’m very disappointed. I still think this is a great game, despite this expansion. I’m sure it’ll get cleared up further, but reviewing it based on the launch this was a mess.

Read our The Division 2 Review
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The Division 2 Warlords of New York Review on Xbox One X
Review Code Provided by Ubisoft

Rating Overall: 4.5