The Division 2: A Polished Journey with Some Endgame Shortcomings

The Division 2 presents a polished, well-thought-out progression path that keeps you engaged, with at least some fuel left in the tank after the initial journey. It’s great gunplay, rewarding loot, and beautiful world—brimming with reasons to explore—kept me engrossed for the majority of my 70 hours of playtime. However, after the early momentum, I was surprised to find that the challenging endgame content I had been looking forward to in World Tier 4 ended up offering more of the same loot I could find elsewhere, without providing any meaningful new mechanical challenges.

The Dark Zone, too, was less interesting than I had hoped. Fortunately, these late-game shortcomings don’t detract from the fantastic journey that leads up to them. The Division 2 gets so much more right than it does wrong.

Things in The Division 2 pick up right where the original post-pandemic story left off, both in terms of plot and cover-based shooting. However, it’s quickly clear that many aspects of the gameplay have improved. Gunplay feels impactful, enemies react to being shot and die faster, and the world is teeming with enticing reasons to explore. There are chests and collectibles around every corner, and this generous distribution of loot goes a long way in the context of The Division 2‘s phenomenally well-realized recreation of Washington, D.C. The series’ familiar urban grid gives way to lush, open vistas, and iconic monuments are overtaken by vines. I never regretted indulging my inner explorer.

There’s a clear progression structure to each of the 11 PvE zones as you level up. You’ll find a safehouse or settlement, scour the landscape for caches, run missions, and capture control points. New activities are introduced as you progress, and the freedom to tackle these tasks in any order keeps the experience from feeling like an obligatory grind. The missions themselves are well-crafted, with some introducing welcome new environmental mechanics, like shooting a valve to douse flames or tracing a power cord to a destructible circuit to open a door.

It’s a pity that these unique elements aren’t incorporated into The Division 2‘s lackluster boss fights, which certainly could have used more variety. Bespoke boss mechanics are a staple of shared-world shooters and action RPGs, so I was expecting more elaborate encounters, especially in The Division 2‘s new strongholds. Unfortunately, I found nothing more than standard enemy archetypes with more health. This deprives the PvE of standout moments and mechanical intricacy, though enemy variety elsewhere is significantly better than in the first game.

The expected assortment of enemies is here, but some factions, like the Mad Max-esque Outcasts, take entertaining creative liberties with their roles. Their Rusher is a suicide bomber, their Engineer controls a battlebot, and their Heavy tries to crush you with a giant hammer. A nice improvement over the first game is that even higher difficulty levels still throw plenty of low-level red-bar grunts at you to sate your bloodlust. They melt quickly under fire but pack a punch and can spell trouble if they get behind you.

The time-to-kill never felt overly spongy, thanks in part to visual tricks like bulky, destructible Kevlar that covers the tankier enemies. As a result, combat remained demanding and fun, if a little predictable. The Division 2 also does a great job of making its vast selection of firearms feel unique through recoil patterns, rate of fire, and sound. Weapons and equipment can drop with beneficial modifiers called Talents that make the loot genuinely interesting. For instance, the Unhinged Talent adds 25% increased weapon damage but makes your gun kick like a mule.

I had a blast squeezing every last drop of damage from my build with the help of the DPS meter, stat screen, and recalibration station, even if I found shotguns a bit too nerfed along the way. While gunplay has greatly improved, ability usage still feels clunky and ineffective, which doesn’t inspire much exploration into skill-powered builds. On the other hand, Specializations offer exciting bonuses, like different grenades, passive effects, and the phenomenally fun-to-use signature weapons.

The ever-present motifs of progression, exploration, and challenge gradually become more prominent as you progress through the approximately 22-hour main campaign. The main plot is serviceable, but the standout moments come in the form of short, direct subplots during missions. There are a lot of excellent activities and progression awaiting you after the critical path—at least for a while.

You’ll unlock powerful signature weapons, be introduced to dynamic world systems like the Priority Target Network, and even face a new endgame faction, along with invaded versions of previously completed missions. However, this initial endgame is more of an epilogue due to its brevity. It only lasts about six hours. Once you’ve completed all the invaded missions and progressed to World Tier 4, you lose the ability to replay them and instead gain access to challenging variants of missions you’ve already played. These missions offer no significant mechanical differences from the main campaign, and the rewards stagnate quickly, apart from the very rare exotic drops.

Before long, you’ll reach the gear score cap of 450 and be inundated with hundreds of randomly generated high-end items that aren’t clearly better than what you already have. This is where things get confusing, as The Division 2 offers unintuitive and inconsistent ways to circumvent this soft limit and continue making progress.

In conclusion, while The Division 2 delivers a satisfying and engaging journey with excellent core gameplay, its endgame content feels lacking in variety and mechanical depth. Still, the game’s well-crafted world, fun combat, and rewarding loot make it an experience that’s hard to put down, especially if you enjoy exploring, teamwork, and the thrill of upgrading your gear.