The Division 2 managed to win itself a lot of fans from its showings at E3 this year, where the game showed off a commitment to learning from the mistakes of its predecessor, and focusing on having oodles of content at launch. A big part of this will be the end game content in the game, and how Ubisoft Massive approach it.
“End-game is very important for us since the very beginning of the development,” Chadi El-Zibaoui – Associate Creative Director said to GamingBolt in an exclusive interview. “We’ve learned a lot from more than the two-years of life, looking at how the community was playing the game in their feedback. So we really have put end-game at the heart of the conception. Now there will be some twists that I can’t tell you about for now. But the specialization is already something that is really going to add depth when you engage in the end-game.”
He also discussed the sticky question surrounding monetization in The Division 2– he confirmed there will be microtransactions, and they will be limited to cosmetics, but he didn’t comment on whether or not loot boxes will be in the game either way, which doesn’t strike me as too encouraging.
“For now we’re keeping the same strategy as the first game: It’s all about vanity. We really want Division 2 to be a fair experience for everyone. Now regarding loot boxes I can’t comment about those at the moment,” he said.
I do hope lootboxes won’t be in the final game whatsoever- I can understand the necessity of having microtransactions to fund ongoing support for the game (and The Division has had great support, so I get it), but loot boxes are unconscionable. I hope Ubisoft does the right thing and doesn’t add them in the game when it launches next year for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.