Warlords of New York: I came back to New York playing the biggest addition to The Division 2 - coverage

Aaron Keener - the biggest villain in the world of The Division 2 - returns with an even more dangerous virus. To stop the new pandemic, players are returning to New York. The American agglomeration is no longer covered with snow, and the thaw reveals ghostly secrets from the past.

At the end of January 2019, I had the pleasure to visit Massive Entertainment. This studio is responsible for the largest expansion in the history of The Division 2 - Warlords of New York. I spent several long hours with this supplement, fighting chaos and bandits on the streets of New York.

The Division 2: Warlords of New York is a separate adventure for everyone.

A very interesting, even controversial decision of the creators is to give the opportunity to immediately jump to the 30th level of experience. Thanks to this, Warlords of the New York content can be read not only by The Division 2 veterans, but also by completely new players. Be the one who bought the basic version of the program, but for some reason never reached the maximum level of experience.

As an autonomous expansion, The Division 2: Warlords of New York tells its own story in a unique area. Here, players are tracking Aaron Keener - a rebel agent of the Division considered to be the greatest villain in the Tom Clancy universe. To catch the traitor, it is necessary to return to New York - the beloved place of fans from the first part, which impresses with its unique atmosphere.

Unfortunately, the add-on does not allow you to return to the old estate. We are exploring a new area.

Funny situation. If the creators of the extension used the locations from the first The Division, no one would be offended by them. New York from the first installment is a beloved place of fans of this series, much more liked than Washington. Massive Entertainment, however, decided to create something their own and unique. That's why the player lands in lower Manhattan - an area that was unavailable in the first The Division.

The new location is accompanied by new weather conditions. The snow from the first Division melted, revealing tons of rubbish and abandoned objects. It's wet, it's sunny, and it's a bit like Washington. I will not beat around the bush: the frosty climate of New York from the first part is almost not here, which hurts terribly. In terms of scenery, Warlords of the New York is much more like the world of The Last of Us. Vegetation absorbs the Big Apple, parking lots turn into ponds, mother nature peeks out from under concrete.

Ubisoft had the only chance in the world to go the easy way. Make a rude recycling of the first installment and no one would blame him. Massive has chosen a more ambitious plan that may turn against the studio. Sure, Chinatown or Brooklyn Bridge are interesting places. However, I think everyone will agree that we would be much more willing to welcome Central Manhattan from the first The Division.

Aaron Keener is not alone. He is accompanied by rebel agents.

The basic goal set for players in Warlords of New York is very simple: get Aaron Keener. The renegade came into possession of a new, more dangerous virus. However, to learn about Keener's location, we must first deal with his four supporters. We can hunt them in any order, which resembles the structure of Far Cry 5. Each defeated boss rewards us with a new skill / gadget.

I liked the open structure of the mission on average. I would prefer something more film-like, scripted, but with a Hollywood blast. In turn, dealing with Keener's supporter in Massive headquarters felt monotony and routine. The boss had indecently great stamina, and before I could deal with him I had to destroy four automatic turrets and dozens of enemies.

My problem is that the confrontation didn't give me too much fun. It was a tedious storm, in which the producer floods the player with successive waves of enemies. One more turret. Again a dozen thugs. Then the moment with the boss and the cycle begins again. There was nothing refreshing about it. My guess is that the same mission played with three friends via the network would be much more interesting. However, I was just getting tired playing solo.

New special skills seem very uneven.

Each of Keener's followers leaves behind a new technology that we can use. In this way, I gained the opportunity to set up a holographic projection on which enemies focus their attention. It sounds great on paper. In practice, my holographic counterpart existed for such a short time that the skill seems to be much more practical than a healing drone or a flamethrower turret.

The second new skill I could test was the adhesive bomb. Exactly the same as in the first The Division. This gadget was already a lot of fun, making it easier to hit the enemy groups first. However, if you expect something completely revolutionary from the new skills and out of this world, rather stop your fantasy.

Personally, I enjoy the new approach to Dark Zone the most.

The Division 2 turned the dark zone into something awful. Instead of one big area full of treasures and dangers, we've got three tight locations encouraging PvP fights. Most often very uneven fights, during which a group of four tormented individual players who dreamed of better loot for more effective performance of PvE missions. I understand the idea behind the smaller wives, but the end result turned out to be fatal. Disastrous!

It's going to be better in Warlords of New York. One big zone full of surprises will return. Large enough for a lonely player to get and take valuable loot from it. On the other hand, it is tight enough for groups of players to come across each other from time to time, fighting for previously collected treasures.

The Division 2: Warlords of New York - for whom and for whom not?

I have the impression that the biggest addition to The Division 2 is simply more of the same. Theoretically, everything changes - location, main bad, even skills. In practice, I felt exactly as if I were carrying out a mission in Washington. Most of the time I was exchanging fire in closed rooms and I was not able to experience the New York spirit at all. I played the classic The Division 2, with all the pros and cons of this game.

For fans of The Division 2, the add-on will be a needed, long-awaited extension of content. New levels and new weapons are the perfect argument for spending the next hours on Ubisoft servers. Especially since, unlike the basic version of the game, this time we have a carrot hung right in front of us. We know who we are chasing and we know who to catch.

Unfortunately, people hoping to return to snowy central Manhattan will be disappointed. This is not the climate. Not this envelope. In addition, Warlords of New York does not introduce the beloved survival mode to the game, which delighted the community centered around the first The Division. From what I could find no new mode, no new module will be imported into the game. The culmination of the add-on will be a new rally in an industrial factory, as well as something like a seasonal pass with separate prizes and challenges.

PS Give me back my New York from the first part!

Warlords of New York: I came back to New York playing the biggest addition to The Division 2 - coverage