Tom Clancy video game &039The Division 2&039 brings a battered Washington D.C. to life USA TODAY

Mike Snider USA TODAY

Published 7:29 AM EDT Mar 15, 2019

Draining the swamp pales in contrast to the problems facing the kingdom's capital in new video game "Tom Clancy's The Division 2."

The White House is beneath attack. An enemy force occupies the Lincoln Memorial and a wrecked Air Force One has crashed on the foot of the U.S. Capitol.

Chaos reigns as the result of a deadly disease, which has left Washington decimated. In the position of an agent for the Strategic Homeland Division, the participant is tasked with shielding the department's makeshift headquarters at the White House and supporting survivors to improve their ragtag lifestyles.

Among your adversaries are numerous clusters of enemies looking for to extend the lawlessness set in motion via the virus that killed hundreds of thousands.

"From the first actual mins you play the sport, we want to without a doubt create urgency," said Chadi El-Zibaoui, accomplice creative director. "We need to surely hook gamers on the narrative and get them curious about what's happening in Washington, D.C."

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"The Division 2," out Friday, for Microsoft Xbox One, Sony PlayStation 4, and Windows PCs ($60-up, for a long time 17-up) is a sequel to the very successful "The Division," launched in March2019, which attracted 20 million players and has remained playable on line.

Players want now not have performed "The Division" to address this new game. The story up to now: A virus exceeded alongside on U.S. Foreign money throughout Black Friday decimated the populace, first in New York City. As society's establishments crumbled, a group of sleeper SHD marketers have been mobilized to hold order and protect surviving civilians.

As the brand new game starts, it is seven months later and the participant's man or woman, a division agent nevertheless in New York, receives a misery name from Washington. That "can handiest suggest one factor, their headquarters are below attack," said the sport's creative director Julian Gerighty. "They are putting by way of a thread and that means America is placing with the aid of a thread."

Played from a 3rd-individual factor of view, you may see your character, so customization is a major a part of "The Division 2." You can pick from an arsenal that includes pistols, gadget guns, shotguns, sniper rifles, turrets and seeking grenades.

A mix of an action sport and position-playing game, "The Division 2" gives you a couple of methods to play. Your sport console or pc should be online, however you may explore solo. The sport's designers recommend you team up with one to a few other gamers for predominant missions (you may arrange your squad or permit the game automatically group you up). "The sport truly sings when you have an amazing institution of gamers you may rely upon,” Gerighty said.

Within the game are three on-line multiplayer "dark zones" wherein you may cooperate to combat off players to pick out to grow to be rogue marketers that betray the department for rewards.

Players can explore a huge photorealistic reproduction of Washington, created the use of the identical geographical mapping information utilized by Google Maps and Waze. Players will go to well-known landmarks including the Washington Monument, the Smithsonian museums and different locales consisting of Union Station and the Capital One Arena.

Publisher Ubisoft deployed photographers, artists, sound layout technicians and game designers at some point of the city to create a huge digital rendition of Washington for the sport. Sound designers walked the streets past due at night time to seize its sound with out the day by day hustle and bustle. Local musicians had been enlisted to make background tune for the sport.

Seven Ubisoft studios have been concerned in the sport's improvement. And despite the fact that Ubisoft's designers have in the past recreated ancient Rome, French Revolutionary-generation Paris and Victorian London in its "Assassin's Creed" games, in addition to Las Vegas and New York in different "Tom Clancy" games, "for the first time in a Ubisoft sport, and I assume quite tons for the entire industry, we have recreated the metropolis one-to-one," Gerighty stated.

This devastated rendition of Washington “is a man or woman itself," he said. "Each area has a very sturdy identity."

Game creators talked with local police, fire and emergency personnel about how the city might reply and devolve amidst a deadly disease. Experts stated the National Mall, the historical area that stretches from the U.S. Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial, would come to be a focal point "wherein you can drop resources if wanted, or you could installation discipline hospitals," said Cloé Hammoud, a researcher for Ubisoft's Massive Entertainment studios in Sweden. 

"The concept is to have truely grounded-in-fact scenarios, and we combine the whole thing to make some thing conceivable," she said.

A fashionable model of the game ($59.99) is out Friday, but gamers who bought the $99 Gold and $199 Ultimate versions of the sport were playing seeing that Tuesday.

An initial objective for gamers is to make their manner to a besieged White House and get their marching orders. Your custom designed man or woman – they may be a female or guy of any pores and skin colour – easily movements between hiding locations to stealthily tackle enemies. Once within the embattled constructing, you could upgrade your skills and weapons, then head out on new missions.

"The Division 2" will possibly come to be a blockbuster like its predecessor, says Mat Piscatella, video video games enterprise analyst with The NPD Group. That earlier sport turned into the No. 3 selling game for2019, at the back of most effective "Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare" and "Battlefield 1" and the 7th best-selling game up to now inside the U.S. Throughout PlayStation 4 and Xbox One mixed, Piscatella said.

"Early player and reviewer remarks for (the sport) appears pretty fine, and whilst it's not exceeding the Twitch viewership of 'Fortnite' or 'Apex Legends,' it is many of the top 10," he stated. "So it has everything going for it one could want."

This new recreation ought to have a long existence, just as its predecessor did. After players finish the tale – envisioned to take 40-plus hours – they unlock a new "Endgame" expansion of the game in which earlier foes are stronger and re-entrenched. And a new enemy, a non-public army organization called the Black Tusks, emerges to shift the stability of electricity. 

Coming some weeks from now: a new mode called Raid in which eight-player squads fight new brilliant-powerful adversaries. And over the following year, Ubisoft will launch three extra free episodes that preserve the tale with new missions in Washington and the surrounding location.

The sport's release "is just a starting," El-Zibaoui said. "The first game has been walking stay for three years. We have a long time dedication for this one as nicely. We are already working on what’s next."

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Follow USA TODAY reporterMike Snider on Twitter: @MikeSnider.

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