The Division's next big expansion adds survival mechanics
Cold comfort farming.
The Division's next big expansion, which we already knew after its announcement at E3 would be called Survival, lives up to its name with the introduction of survival mechanics as part of an all-new game mode.
Ubisoft announced further details on the paid expansion during a surprise livestream today (watched by an attentive Kotaku), which revealed the expansion will drop 24 players into a snow-covered instance of The Division's map, stripping them of their high level gear and tasking them to get to the centre of the map. There in the Dark Zone they can find antiviral drugs that can cure their sickness - with players also having to manage hunger, thirst and keeping on top of their illness as they build up a tolerance to medication. Sounds fun?
The mode will be available in both PvE and PvP flavours, and if you're downed in either mode without a teammate nearby to revive you you could be kicked out of the session. A session looks to have an upper limit of two hours - at least that's how long you're expected to survive before your sickness kills you.
The new survival mode is part of sweeping changes Ubisoft has made to The Division in recent weeks, and this new expansion - while not having a nailed down date just yet - will come to Xbox One and PC first before heading to PS4. PC players can sign up and play a beta of the new mode that'll be available shortly on uPlay.